THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

GIFT  OF 

Hugo  d e  Bussi&res 


YANKEE 
ENCHANT 
MENTS 


TINKER 
ENCHANT 
MENTS 


-\  by  CHARLES 

B  ATT  ELL  LOO  MIS 

Pic- 

tures 

by 

F.  Y. 
CORY 


NEW   YORK  :  McCLURE 
PHILLIPS  &  CO.    M    C    M 


COPYRIGHT,    1900 
BY  MCCLURE,  PHILLIPS  &  Co. 


GIFT 


TO  MY  CHILDREN, 
BATTELL,  ALFRED   AND 


JE872036 


PREFACE 

Dear  Children  : 

DO  you  think  you  can  stand  twenty 
stories  in  a  bunch  ?  Wouldn't 
you  better  take  them  one  at  a 
time  ?  I  did  not  write  them  all  at  once, 
so  why  should  you  read  them  all  at  once  ? 

I  have  tried  to  make  them  as  true  as 
possible.  I  will  not  vouch  for  all  the  in 
cidents,  but  the  children  are  as  true  as  I 
could  make  them. 

I  dare  say  that  there  are  some  of  you 
who  are  too  old  for  fairy  stories,  and  if 
that  is  the  case  I  know  you  will  pity  me 
who  have  been  reading  them  for  thirty 
years  and  still  want  more. 

But  even  though  you  may  have  passed 
beyond  the  age  of  fairy  tales  you  certainly 


PREFACE 

have  not  outgrown  your  love  for  charming 
pictures,  and  the  book  is  full  of  them.  I 
wish  I  might  have  seen  the  illustrations 
before  I  told  the  stories  because  then  the 
stories  would  have  been  twice  as  good. 

Oh,  by  the  way,  you  children  who  are 
too  old  for  the  stories,  won't  you  please 
read  them  out  loud  to  your  father  and 
mother  and  show  them  the  pictures  ? 

Tour  sincere  friend, 

THE  AUTHOR. 


A  rAELE  OF  THE 
CONTENTS 

TITLE  PAGE 

THE  GREEN  BOY  FROM  "HARRAH"  i 

THE  BEAR  THAT  BECAME  A  PRINCE  17 

TOD  AND  THE  STOLEN  HOLIDAYS  31 

THE  MILLION  SILVER  DOLLARS  .  51 

THE  CROWS'  SINGING  LESSON  .  69 
THE  STRONGEST  BOY  IN  THE 

WHOLE  WORLD  ...  87 

THE  TOUCH  OF  GOLD  ...  99 
TARKUS  AND  THE  IMITATION 

LIQUID  AIR  .  .  .  .115 
AMINADAB  SKELCH  AND  His  FREE 

LIBRARY  .  .  .  •  131 

OLIVER'S  THREE  GIFTS  .  .  151 

JIM  AND  THE  GOLD  SPIRIT  .  .  167 
THE  CAKE  OF  CHARITY  .  .181 
THE  BOY  WHO  MADE  A  TROLLEY 

CAR igy 

CYRIL  AND  THE  GNOME  .  .  215 

ix 


TITLE  PAGE 
THE  BUBBLE  BOY  .  .  .231 
THE  RABBITS'  EASTER  EGGS  .  .  247 
THE  TALE  OF  THE  GOLDEN  EGG  269 
THE  BOY  WHO  REQUIRED  WIND 
ING  .....  285 
THE  BOY  WHO  TURNED  BOOKS 

INTO  FOOD     ....  301 

SYDNEY  AND  THE  JAR   FAIRY         .  313 


THE     GREEN     BOY     FROM 
"  H  A  R  R  A  H  " 


OH,  how  it  rained !  And  how  the 
wind  blew  !  Sandy  McMichael 
stood  at  the  window  of  his  bed 
room,  wondering  whether  there  would  be 
another  flood,  and  rather  hoping  that  there 
would  be  because  he  should  like  to  see  the 
animals  going  in  two  by  two.  It  had  rained 
for  three  days.  He  had  read  until  he  was 
tired,  he  had  played  with  his  lead  soldiers 
until  he  had  fought  three  Spanish  wars 
and  had  never  lost  an  American,  and  now 

3 


THE    GREEN    BOY    FROM     "HARRAH" 

he  was  ripe  for  the  fellowship  of  any  kind 
of  boy. 

He  peered  up  into  the  sky  at  the  large 
drops  that  grew  larger  as  they  descended, 
and  wished  that  he  might  be  a  drop  of  rain 
to  have  such  a  lovely  long  jump  from  the 
clouds  to  the  earth.  It  would  be  better 
than  jumping  off  the  rafters  in  the  barn. 
Hullo !  there  was  a  drop  way  up  that 
must  be  the  great-grandfather  of  the  rest. 
How  high  it  was  and  how  it  was  growing ! 
Sandy  opened  the  window  to  watch  it  bet 
ter,  and  the  next  minute  a  funny-look 
ing  little  boy,  with  a  skin  as  green  as  a 
maple  leaf  in  mid-summer,  and  wearing 
a  silken  cloak  of  the  color  of  old  gold, 
landed  on  his  feet  upon  the  carpet  beside 
Sandy. 

"  I've  done  it  at  last,"  said  he  in  a  pip 
ing  voice  that,  while  not  unmusical,  was 
different  from  any  that  Sandy  had  ever 
heard. 


THE    GREEN     BOY    FROM     "HARRAH" 

"  Where  d'you  come  from  ?  "  Sandy 
asked  the  little  chap. 

"  From  Harrah,"  was  the    reply. 

He  was  just  about  Sandy's  size,  but  more 
slender,  and  his  head  was  nearly  twice  as 
big.  His  eyes  were  yellow,  and  shone  like 
electric  lights.  His  hair  was  a  lighter 
shade  of  green  than  his  body,  and  his  lips 
were  straw  color,  uncanny-looking,  and 
yet  not  unhandsome;  and  he  was  decidedly 
friendly,  for  he  rubbed  Sandy's  cheeks  with 
his  long  slender  hands  and  made  a  cooing 
noise  that  evidently  meant  "  I  like  you." 

"  Where's  Harrah  ?  "  asked  Sandy;  but 
beyond  pointing  to  the  sky,  the  green  boy 
did  not  explain.  Probably  he  had  come 
from  a  star  and  Harrah  was  what  he  called 
it.  It  is  unlikely  that  the  people  who  live 
in  the  stars  know  what  we  call  them,  and 
if  a  man  came  from  Mars  and  was  asked  : 
"  Well,  how  did  you  leave  the  folks  at 
Mars  ? "  he  wouldn't  understand,  and 

5 


THE    GREEN     BOY    FROM    "  H  A  R  R  A  H 

indeed  might  answer :  "  All  well,  includ 
ing  Ma." 

Sandy,  who  always  took  things  as  they 
came,  said  :  "  Let's  play  checkers." 

"  All  right,"  said  the  green  boy,  who 
certainly  spoke  good  every-day  English, 
although  he  had  what  was  evidently  a 
Harrahian  accent. 

"  Oh,  dear,"  said  the  little  visitor  sud 
denly,  "  I  forgot  to  eat  my  history  lesson 
before  I  came  down,  and  if  I  don't  know 
it  to-morrow,  my  teacher  will  make  me  eat 
more  geography  than  is  good  for  me,  just 
to  punish  me.  Have  you  a  history  cake 
anywhere  around  ?" 

"  A  wh-a-at  ?  "  asked  Sandy  in  amaze 
ment. 

"  A  history  cake.  What  do  you  call 
them  ?  How  would  you  learn  your  his 
tory  lesson  ?  " 

"  By  studying  so  hard  it  would  make 
me  hate  it,"  answered  Sandy  promptly. 

6 


He  was  just  taking  up  Greek  history  and 
lost  all  the  good  marks  that  American  his 
tory  had  earned  for  him  just  because  he 
wasn't  interested  in  what  a  lot  of  dead 
Greeks  had  done. 

"  How  funny  !  "  said  the  green  boy. 
"  But  I  supposed  that  things  would  be 
different  up  here." 

"  You  mean  down  here,"  said  Sandy. 

"  No,  I  don't,"  said  the  green  boy, 
suddenly  leaping  up  three  feet  and  sitting 
in  mid  air  as  easily  as  if  he  were  on  a  seat. 
"  I  came  up  here  from  down  there,"  point 
ing  to  the  sky,  "  and  we  learn  things  down 
there  by  eating  them.  We  have  a  speller 
that  is  ten  cakes,  and  a  bite  is  a  lesson. 
There  are  about  a  hundred  bites  to  a  cake, 
and  when  you've  eaten  all  the  cakes,  you 
know  how  to  spell." 

"  Oh,  don't  I  wish  that  I  could  learn 
my  lessons  that  way  !  Say,  what  is  your 
name  ? " 


"  Jorroel,"  said  the  green  boy. 

"  Mine  is  Sandy.  Say,  Jorroel,  how  do 
you  sit  that  way — on  nothing  ?  " 

"  Why,  I  make  up  my  mind  to  do  it, 
and  then  it  comes  easy.  Down  in  Harrah 
we  can  do  whatever  we  make  up  our 
minds  to  do." 

"  But,  say/'  said  Sandy,  "  do  you  like 
to  eat  those  cakes  ?  " 

"  Of  course.  Our  parents  think  that  it 
is  best  for  us  to  learn  all  we  can  about 
spelling  and  reading  and  typewriting  and 
arithmetic  and  this  far  distant  planet  that 
lights  our  night,  and  so  they  make  the 
cakes  as  nice  as  they  can  be  so  that  we'll 
like  to  learn  things.  I  think  that  history 
cake  is  the  best  of  the  lot,  because  it's  so 
nice  and  sour;  but  grammar  cake  I  don't 
much  like,  because  it's  sweet,  and  boys 
don't  like  sweet  things." 

"  Oh,  don't  they  though  ?  We  earthly 
boys  do.  But,  say,  can't  you  take  me  up, 


THE    GREEN    BOY    FROM    "HARRAH" 

or  down,  to  Harrah  and  bring  me  back 
before  bedtime  ?  " 

u  Why,  I  can  if  you  don't  weigh  more 
than  fifty  pounds.  I  can  make  up  my 
mind  to  go  back  to  Harrah  and  take  you 
on  my  back  if  you're  under  fifty  in  weight. 
If  you  weigh  more  than  that  I  can't  budge 
you." 

tc  I  weigh  forty-seven,"  said  Sandy. 

tc  Then  get  on  my  back,"  said  Jorroel, 
jumping  down  from  his  invisible  perch. 

Sandy  did  so,  and  then  Jorroel  climbed 
up  on  the  window  ledge  and  made  up  his 
mind  as  hard  as  he  could  to  go  back  to 
Harrah. 

The  next  minute  they  were  rushing 
through  the  air  at  a  speed  that  would  have 
made  the  Empire  State  Express  turn  as 
green,  through  envy,  as  Jorroel  was.  It 
may  have  been  five  minutes,  but  it  didn't 
seem  more  than  that  many  seconds,  before 
they  landed  at  Harrah,  in  the  midst  of 

9 


an  undulating  meadow  of  lovely  pink 
grass.  Beautiful  butterflies,  that  flamed 
like  different  colored  lights  and  that  sang 
more  sweetly  than  nightingales,  flew  round 
and  round  in  circles,  until  Sandy  felt  dizzy 
and  said  so.  Then  they  turned  and  flew 
the  other  way.  He  soon  found  out  that 
this  thoughtfulness  of  other's  feelings 
characterized  every  living  thing  in  Har- 
rah,  which  he  imagined  to  be  Mars,  al 
though  he  had  no  means  of  knowing. 
All  around  them  globular  dwellings  full 
of  windows  floated  in  the  air,  and  Jorroel 
told  him  that  this  was  his  native  town  and 
was  called  "  Jarratol." 

"  Want  to  see  where  you  came  from  ?  >: 
he  asked  Sandy. 

"  Sure,"  said  Sandy.  I  am  sorry  to  say 
that  he  had  several  slang  phrases  that  he 
would  be  glad  to  drop  when  he  grew  older 
and  found  how  burr-like  they  were  and  as 
useless  as  burrs,  too. 


"  You  can  wait  until  night  and  look  at 
it  through  a  faralan.  It's  as  yellow  as  my 
lips.  Say,  you  must  be  hungry  after  your 
long  ride.  Come  up  to  our  house  and 
read  some  dinner." 

"  Read  it !  "  said  Sandy.  "  You  mean 
eat  it." 

Jorroel  burst  into  a  shrill  laugh  that 
sounded  like  the  noise  of  a  katydid. 
"  We  eat  what  we  want  to  learn,"  said  he, 
"  but  we  read  to  keep  ourselves  from 
starving.  What'll  you  read  ?  " 

"  Some  candy  and  pie,"  said  Sandy  at  a 
venture. 

"  That's  a  good  choice,  I  think.  Come 
up,  and  we'll  get  them." 

A  few  feet  above  where  they  were  stand 
ing  was  a  round  house,  not  unlike  a  bubble, 
and  like  a  bubble  it  floated  hither  and 
thither,  not  being  fastened  to  the  ground, 
and  yet  not  going  very  far  in  any  direc 
tion.  Jorroel  explained  that  the  ground 


THE    GREEN     BOY    FROM    "HARRAH" 

was  so  fertile  that  they  did  not  like  to 
waste  it  by  using  it  to  set  houses  upon, 
.so  the  houses  were  all  built  in  the  air. 
Sandy  found  that  he  could  walk  up  on 
the  air  to  it  as  easily  as  he  could  tread 
solid  ground  on  the  earth,  and  he  ac 
companied  his  friend  to  it.  A  pretty, 
green  woman,  not  much  bigger  than 
Jorroel,  and  wearing  a  cloak  made  of  a 
crimson,  cob-webby  stuff,  sat  at  a  table 
reading  a  book. 

"  Mamma,  I've  been  to  Sush  at  last.  I 
knew  I  could  do  it  if  I  made  up  my  mind 
hard  enough.  And  I've  brought  back  a 
little  boy  from  there,  and  he's  hungry  and 
wants  to  read  some  dinner." 

Jorroel's  mother  came  over  and  rubbed 
Sandy's  cheeks,  which  seemed  to  be  the 
Harrahian  way  of  saluting  one.  Then 
she  said,  without  being  surprised  that  he 
had  come  so  far  : 

"  You  must  be  hungry.    Read  whatever 


you  want.  You'll  find  the  books  on  the 
shelf  there." 

Sandy  stepped  over  to  a  book-case  and 
saw  a  number  of  books  in  English.  One 
said  <c  Roast  Beef/'  another  said  "  Lemon 
Pie/'  another  was  marked  "  Potatoes/'  and 
others  bore  names  that  he  had  never  heard 
of  before  and  were  probably  those  of  foods 
that  were  peculiar  to  Harrah.  The  one 
marked  "  Lemon  Pie "  told  how  lemon 
pie  was  made,  who  invented  it,  and  so  on ; 
and  by  the  time  Sandy  had  finished  the 
account  he  felt  just  the  same  as  if  he  had 
eaten  a  pie,  but  with  this  important  differ 
ence — he  hadn't  had  the  fun  of  eating  it. 
After  lemon  pie  one  doesn't  care  much 
about  roast  beef,  so  Sandy  didn't  read  any 
of  that. 

It  was  growing  dark.  Sandy  glanced 
out  of  the  window  and  saw  the  earth  just 
rising  and  flooding  Harrah  with  lovely 
earth-light. 


"  That's  where  I  came  from,  isn't  it  ?  " 
he  asked. 

"  Yes,"  answered  Jorroel,  going  to  a 
closet  and  getting  out  a  faralan. 

"  We  call  it  the  earth,"  said  Sandy, 
"  but  I  suppose  it's  your  moon  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Jorroel's  mother,  "  but  we 
call  your  earth  Sush." 

Jorroel  handed  him  the  faralan,  which 
was  much  like  a  telescope,  and  he  found 
that  he  could  see  New  York  through  it. 

"  Now,  if  you  want  to  learn  something," 
said  Jorroel's  mother,  "  you  might  eat 
some  arithmetic — that  always  comes  in 
handy  in  any  planet.  Jorroel,  get  him 
the  multiplication  table  up  to  five.  I  don't 
believe  he  knows  it  very  well — if  he's 
anything  like  you." 

Jorroel  went  to  the  closet  and  returned 
in  a  moment  with  four  sticks  of  what 
looked  like  candy  to  Sandy's  earthly  eyes. 
He  found  that  they  were  sour,  yet  not 


unpleasant,  but  not  a  bit  like  candy. 
When  he  had  eaten  the  last  one,  he  knew 
his  tables  up  to  five. 

"  I  really  think  I  must  be  going. 
Mamma  will  worry/'  said  he. 

"  I  guess  you  can  find  your  way  back 
alone,"  said  Jorroel.  "  Go  just  as  you 
came,  by  the  Milky  Way.  And  come  and 
see  us  often.  I'll  show  you  lots  of  things 
you  never  saw  before,  and  I'd  like  you  to 
pay  us  a  long  visit  if  your  mother  doesn't 
object." 

"  Yes,"  said  the  mother  kindly,  and 
then  she  rubbed  his  cheeks  again,  and  he 
followed  Jorroel  out  doors,  or  rather  out 
windows,  because  they  don't  have  doors 
in  Harrah.  Jorroel  took  Sandy  by  the 
ankles  and  hurled  him  by  main  strength 
toward  the  rising  earth,  and  a  few  moments 
of  rushing  space  brought  the  boy  to  his 
window-sill  just  as  his  dinner  bell  was 
ringing.  He  was  so  hungry  after  his  trip 
'5 


THE    GREEN     BOY    FROM    "HARRAH" 

that  he  was  very  glad  to  think  that  he 
would  eat,  and  not  read,  dinner.  On  the 
way  down  stairs  he  asked  himself  how 
much  four  times  four  were,  but  he  couldn't 
remember ;  and  by  the  time  he  had  been 
helped  to  everything  eatable  on  the  table 
his  trip  to  Harrah  was  so  hazy  and  dream 
like  that  he  said  nothing  to  his  parents 
about  it.  But  he  hoped  that,  if  it  was  a 
dream,  he  would  dream  some  more  about  it. 


THE  BEAR  THAT  BECAME 
A   PRINCE 


HARRY  ST.  CLAIR  was  out 
walking  with  his  cousin,  Joe  Gil 
bert.  Joe  was  two  years  older 
than  Harry,  who  was  twelve  ;  but  they 
loved  to  take  walks  together  because  both 
were  interested  in  botany.  Now,  don't 
put  the  book  down  and  say,  "  No,  thanks ; 
I'll  learn  about  that  when  it  comes  in 
my  school  course."  Botany  is  extremely 
interesting,  and  I  notice  that  people  who 
take  it  up  seldom  drop  it;  but  I  never 

'9 


THE      BEAR      THAT      BECAME      A      PRINCE 

took  it  up,  so  you've  nothing  to  fear 
from  me. 

Harry  lives  on  Staten  Island,  not  far 
from  New  Brighton,  and  he  was  one  of 
the  first  boys  to  see  the  "  Raleigh"  when 
she  came  back  from  Manila.  In  fact,  it  was 
the  day  after  his  walk  with  Joe  that  she 
came  through  the  Narrows.  But  that 
hasn't  anything  to  do  with  botany  either. 

The  two  boys  walked  inland,  hunting 
for  specimens  of — the  name  escapes  me,  so 
you  see  I'm  not  trying  to  give  you  a  bot 
any  pill  at  all.  In  the  course  of  their 
walk  they  came  upon  a  performing  bear 
that  was  dancing  to  the  music  of  a  hand- 
organ  in  the  hands  of  a  weather-beaten  old 
Italian.  Now,  as  it  happened,  Harry  had 
been  reading  about  the  prince  that  was 
turned  into  a  bear — I've  forgotten  the 
title  of  the  tale — and  he  turned  and  said 
to  Joe,  "  I  wonder  if  that  bear  was  ever  a 
prince  ? " 

20 


THE      BEAR      THAT      BECAME      A      PRINCE 

The  bear  turned  his  poor,  old,  bleared 
eyes  at  him,  and  said,  in  a  muffled  voice : 

"  Standing  here  I  supplicate, 
Save  me  from  my  dreadful  fate." 

Harry  rubbed  his  ears,  and  again  the 
bear  said  the  same  words  : 

u  Standing  here  I  supplicate, 
Save  me  from  my  dreadful  fate." 

Harry  was  delighted  that  the  bear  should 
have  enough  confidence  in  him  to  ask  to 
be  saved,  and  he  said :  "  Are  you  a 
prince  ? " 

"  I  am  indeed/'  said  the  bear.  "  I  be 
long  to  the  royal  family  of  England,  and  I 
was  turned  into  a  bear  to  satisfy  the  grudge 
of  an  anarchist.  Save  me,  and  grandma 
will  never  forget  it." 

Harry  didn't  realize  who  "  grandma " 
was,  although  her  picture  is  on  millions  of 
coins  all  over  the  world.  He  looked  at 
Joe  and  then  at  the  organ-grinder.  Either 


THE      BEAR      THAT      BECAME      A      PRINCE 

they  had  not  heard,  or  else  they  could  not 
understand  bear  talk.  Joe  was  picking  a 
dandelion,  or  maybe  it  was  a  daisy.  I  can 
never  tell  them  apart.  I  wish  I  had  stud 
ied  botany.  Harry  gave  five  cents  to 
the  organ-grinder,  and  said  to  the  bear  in 
an  undertone : 

"  How  can  I  save  you  ?  " 

"  Take  your  jack-knife  and  rip  my  hide 
down  the  back,  and  then  wish  me  back  to 
my  former  estate.  You  believe  in  fairies, 
and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  don't  you  ?  " 

Now,  up  to  that  minute,  Harry  had  not 
really  believed  in  anything  of  the  sort. 
He  had  read  the  blue  fairy  book  and  the 
red  one  and  Grimm's  and  Andersen's,  but 
he  had  supposed  they  were  only  meant  to 
amuse  one — as  a  sort  of  antidote  to  school 
books  —  but  I  leave  it  to  you  if  you 
wouldn't  believe  a  thoroughly  respectable 
bear  who  confided  his  woes  to  you  in  per 
fectly  good  English  ? 


THE      BEAR      THAT      BECAME      A      PRINCE 

"  What  will  the  organ-grinder  say  ?  " 
said  Harry.  He  was  a  thoughtful  boy, 
and  he  knew  that  the  bear  was  of  great 
value  to  the  man  ;  but  after  all  a  right  is  a 
right  and  a  wrong  is  a  wrong,  and  it 
couldn't  be  right  to  keep  a  prince  in  such 
a  dusty  bear's  skin,  even  if  releasing  him 
did  ruin  the  poor  Italian. 

"  Don't  worry  about  him,"  said  the  bear. 
"  He  has  made  a  fortune  out  of  me,  and 
as  you  see,  he  doesn't  give  me  enough  to 
eat,  and  often  he  beats  me  when  it  is  rainy 
and  business  is  poor  ;  so  I  don't  think  you 
need  worry  on  his  account." 

Harry's  last  scruples  vanished.  The 
organ-grinder  was  bent  over  his  organ, 
changing  the  tune.  Joe  was  climbing  a 
bank  after  some  red  buttercups,  and  Harry 
whipped  out  his  knife  and  opened  it  in  a 
jiffy,  and  with  as  firm  a  hand  as  he  could 
master,  he  ripped  the  bear's  hide  down  the 
back,  and — a  young,  handsome  boy  stood 
23 


THE      BEAR      THAT      BECAME      A      PRINCE 

before  him.  He  was  not  dressed  like  a 
fairy-story  prince,  because  real  princes 
don't  dress  that  way,  except  at  private  the 
atricals  ;  but  he  was  attired  in  a  modish 
suit  that  was  becoming  and  in  good  taste, 
and  Harry  took  a  liking  to  him  as  soon  as 
he  saw  him. 

When  the  Italian  looked  up  and  saw  the 
young  man,  he  gave  a  shriek,  and  then 
crossed  himself.  Then  he  slung  his  organ 
over  his  shoulder  and  ran  off  in  the  direc 
tion  of  New  Brighton. 

Harry  called  to  Joe,  but  he  had  disap 
peared.  He  was  a  very  enthusiastic  bo 
tanist,  and  probably  he  had  found  a  new 
breed  of  violets  or  something  or  other,  and 
was  busy  analyzing  them. 

Harry  didn't  waste  any  time  looking  for 
Joe.  He  was  anxious  to  do  something  for 
the  prince  at  once.  He  really  hadn't  bet 
tered  his  condition  much,  because  as  a  bear 
he  was  supported  by  the  Italian,  but  as  a 
24 


THE      BEAR      THAT      BECAME      A      PRINCE 

prince  he  had  only  a  few  coins  that  had 
happened  to  be  in  his  pocket  when  he  was 
changed  into  a  bear  a  few  months  pre 
vious. 

"  Did  you  say  that  you  were  related  to 
Queen  Victoria  ?  "  asked  Harry. 

"  She's  my  grandma,"  said  the  boy, 
simply. 

"  Well,  I  guess  my  father  can  get  you 
home  to  your  folks  all  right.  He  has  a 
good  deal  of  influence.  He's  a  lawyer. 
I  know  he'll  be  willing  to  telegraph  over 
to  your  grandmother  that  you  have  stopped 
being  a  bear,  and  she'll  probably  send  you 
a  ticket  home.  And  I  guess  you  can  visit 
us  until  she  does." 

They  walked  toward  Harry's  house, 
which  was  about  a  mile  away.  Suddenly 
Harry  wheeled  around.  "  Say,"  said  he, 
"  it  would  be  bully  fun  to  send  that  mes 
sage  ourselves.  We  can  send  it  collect. 
Your  grandma  won't  mind,  will  she  ?" 


THE      BEAR      THAT      BECAME      A      PRINCE 

The  prince  looked  a  little  dubious.  "  I 
suppose  not,"  he  said.  "You  see,  my 
name  will  make  it  a  little  expensive." 

"  Why,  what's  your  name  ? "  asked 
Harry. 

"  Edward  Albert  Patrick  Alfred  Athel- 
stan  Victor  George  Alexander  Oscar 
Humbert  Nicholas  of  Wales." 

"Phe-ew!"  whistled  Harry.  "And 
what  do  they  call  you  for  short  ? " 

"  Tot." 

"  Oh,  what  a  name  for  a  boy  !  "  shouted 
Harry,  and  then,  as  he  saw  the  prince 
color,  he  said :  "  Oh,  I  didn't  mean 
anything;  but  you  aren't  a  tot,  you 
know?" 

And  he  wasn't  a  tot  by  any  means,  for 
he  was  over  five  feet  tall. 

"  Well,  we'll  go  over  to  the  telegraph 
office  at  New  Brighton  and  let  'em  know 
you're  all  right.  I  guess  it  won't  break 
your  grandmother." 

26 


THE      BEAR     THAT      BECAME      A      PRINCE 

The  prince  was  immensely  pleased  to 
think  that  he  was  going  home  so  soon. 
He  had  been  homesick  even  as  a  bear,  and 
now  that  he  was  a  boy  again,  he  was  wild 
to  meet  his  mother  and  father  and  sisters 
— and  his  grandmother. 

Harry  and  he  swapped  experiences  on 
their  way  to  the  telegraph  office,  and  the 
former  was  surprised  to  learn  that  the 
prince  had  led  a  good  deal  of  a  boy's  life 
after  all.  He  had  supposed  that  no  one 
could  speak  to  a  prince  in  England  with 
out  getting  down  on  his  knees,  but  this 
one  might  be  his  schoolmate  for  all  the 
airs  he  had. 

Harry  wrote  the  message,  and  spoiled 
five  blanks  in  doing  it.  The  prince  was 
glad  to  leave  it  to  him.  The  sixth  trial  was 
successful,  and  the  cablegram  read : 
"  Prince  Edward  Albert  Patrick  Alfred 
Athelstan  Victor  George  Alexander  Oscar 
Humbert  Nicholas  of  Wales  has  been 
27 


THE     BEAR      THAT      BECAME      A      PRINCE 

turned  into  a  boy  again.     Send  money  for 
his  return.     Collect.     Answer. 

"  HARRY." 

"  I  was  afraid  to  use  c  Tot,*  because  it 
didn't  seem  to  give  enough  facts.  But 
your  name  is  a  regulyer  of  a  railroad  train, 
and  they'll  know  it  must  be  you  when 
they  see  it,"  said  Harry. 

He  addressed  the  message  to  "  Queen 
Victoria,  London,  England." 

"  The  operator  there  has  probably  heard 
of  her,"  said  Harry,  smiling. 

The  operator  never  raised  an  eyebrow 
when  he  took  the  message.  Maybe  he 
thought  it  was  in  cypher.  Maybe  he 
didn't  care  what  it  was. 

The  message  sent,  the  boys  sat  down  to 
wait  for  an  answer,  and  while  they  were 
talking  together,  a  hand-organ  outside  the 
door  struck  up  "  God  Save  the  Queen." 
At  the  first  tones  the  prince  stepped  to  the 
28 


THE     BEAR     THAT      BECAME      A      PRINCE 

door.  The  organ-grinder  was  facing  the 
doorway,  and  he  recognized  the  prince  in 
an  instant.  It  was  our  old  friend,  who 
had  decided  to  stay  in  the  vicinity  awhile, 
in  hopes  of  recovering  his  bear.  As  soon 
as  he  saw  the  prince,  he  said  something  in 
Italian  and  made  a  pass  at  him  and — that 
I  should  have  to  tell  it ! — the  prince  turned 
into  a  snuffy,  dusty,  blear-eyed,  common 
place  old  bear  in  an  instant,  and  suffered 
himself  to  be  led  away  in  the  direction  of 
the  ferry  to  New  York. 

Harry  did  not  notice  his  absence  till  he 
was  out  of  sight,  and  then,  although  he 
traced  him  to  the  ferry-boat,  he  lost  him 
because  the  boat  had  gone. 

If  any  of  you  who  read  this  see  a 
swarthy  Italian  with  a  scar  on  his  right 
cheek  and  a  fierce  black  moustache,  and  if 
he  has  a  hand-organ  and  a  tired-looking 
bear,  that  bear  is  the  prince. 


TOD     AND      THE      STOLEN 
HOLIDAYS 


IT  would  have  been  easy  to  discover 
good  qualities  in  Tod  Pendleton. 
He  was  kind-hearted  and  brave  and 
good-humored,  but  he  was  also  greedy.  As 
an  illustration  of  this  latter  quality  let  me 
tell  an  incident  connected  with  his  boyhood 
that  my  grandfather  told  me.  Years  ago 
there  was  a  kind  of  candy  known  as  the 
"Jackson  ball."  It  was  as  large  around  as 
a  crab-apple  and  as  hard  as  a  stone  pave 
ment  is  when  you  fall  headlong  on  it.  Well, 

33 


TOD    AND    THE    STOLEN     HOLIDAYS 

one  day  Timotheus  Pauncefort  found  a  cent 
in  the  road,  and,  as  he  was  a  most  generous 
little  fellow,  he  immediately  invited  Tod 
to  go  with  him  to  the  little  candy-store  on 
the  corner,  and  he'd  treat  him  to  what 
ever  he  wanted.  Most  boys  would  have 
chosen  taffy  as  being  easy  to  divide ;  but 
Tod,  never  thinking  about  Timotheus, 
said  he  guessed  he'd  take  a  Jackson  ball, 
and  Timotheus  bought  one — they  came 
one  for  a  cent.  But,  as  there  is  no  way 
to  dispose  of  them  but  to  suck  them  to 
their  dissolution,  Timotheus  didn't  get  a 
taste.  They  came  out  of  the  candy-store 
two  happy  boys — Timotheus  happy  be 
cause  he  had  provided  a  feast  for  his 
friend,  and  Tod  happy  because  it  had 
been  provided  without  costing  him  any 
thing. 

It  was  when  Tod  was  eleven  years  old 
that  his  greed  caused  trouble  to  the  whole 
of  the  United  States  on  two  very  import- 

34 


TOD    AND    THE    STOLEN     HOLIDAYS 

ant  days.  Just  what  year  it  was,  I  cannot 
say,  but  your  great-grandfather  may  re 
member.  His  parents  took  him  to  a  bal 
loon  ascension  at  Rockeford  Park,  a  place 
where  they  hold  fairs  and  poultry-shows 
every  fall. 

It  is  not  for  me  to  say  how  he  managed 
to  do  it.  I  don't  think  he  was  ever  clear 
in  his  own  mind  how  it  came  about,  but  it 
is  a  well-known  fact  that  when  you  cut 
the  rope  that  holds  a  balloon  to  the  earth, 
that  balloon  is  going  to  escape  if  it  has  a 
spark  of  animation.  I  suppose  the  bal 
loonist  had  gone  to  lunch ;  but  wherever  he 
was,  he  was  not  in  the  balloon  when  Tod 
stepped  into  the  basket  to  see  how  the 
old  thing  worked ;  and  as  Tod  was  a  per 
fectly  fearless  and  reckless  boy,  he  did  not 
think  of  the  moral  or  physical  consequen 
ces,  but  simply  sawed  away  at  the  rope 
with  his  jack-knife  until  the  balloon  sprang 
up  like  a  lark  from  its  nest  in  the  meadow, 

35 


TOD  AND  THE  STOLEN  HOLIDAYS 

and  was  soon  out  of  hearing  of  the  angry 
owner. 

My  grandfather  told  me  that  the  farm 
er's  horse  began  to  cut  up  just  as  Tom 
was  severing  the  rope,  and  that  that  drew 
away  the  attention  of  the  sight-seers.  Cer 
tainly  there  never  was  a  madder  man  than 
the  owner  of  that  balloon,  and  he  called 
the  bystanders  all  sorts  of  names  for  not 
interfering  to  save  his  precious  balloon. 

As  for  Tod,  he  was  tickled  to  death. 
He  waved  farewell  to  the  crowds  below, 
sang  snatches  of  songs,  and  sat  on  the 
edge  of  the  basket  with  his  legs  dangling 
over  until  his  mother  fainted ;  then,  as  he 
happened  to  see  her,  he  drew  in  his  legs: 
he  did  not  like  to  occasion  unnecessary 
pain. 

After  he  had  been  in  the  balloon  some 

ten   hours,  and  had  sailed  I   don't   know 

how  many  miles,  he  became  very  hungry, 

and,  seeing  land  a  quarter  of  a  mile  above 

36 


TOD  AND  THE  STOLEN  HOLIDAYS 

him,  he  decided  to  leave  the  balloon  and 
take  a  short  walk  for  exercise  if  he  could 
fasten  his  anchor  anywhere.  The  bal 
loonist  had  placed  an  emergency  anchor  in 
the  balloon,  and  if  he  hadn't,  no  one  would 
ever  have  heard  of  Tod  again — so  my 
grandfather  said. 

He  was  now  some  three  hundred  miles 
above  the  earth,  higher  than  any  man  of 
science  has  ever  been,  and  yet  he  did  not 
feel  cold,  nor  bleed  at  the  ears,  nor  do 
any  of  those  unpleasant  things  that  aero 
nauts  seem  to  consider  so  necessary. 

That  there  should  be  land  up  in  the  air 
struck  him  as  odd  at  first,  and  then  he  re 
flected  that  there  were  many  things  con 
nected  with  the  heavens  that  he  knew 
nothing  about,  and  this  land  was  undoubt 
edly  one  of  them. 

As  he  sped  past  a  little  cape  of  land 
that  jutted  out  into  the  air,  he  was  able  to 
throw  the  anchor  into  a  tree,  and  a  mo- 

37 


TOD  AND  THE  STOLEN  HOLIDAYS 

ment  later  the  balloon  was  captive,  and 
he  was  sliding  down  the  rope  to  what 
looked  like  solid  earth.  But  it  was  not 
as  solid  as  it  looked.  In  fact,  it  was 
a  cloud,  and  if  a  handsome  little  boy, 
clad  in  what  looked  like  an  autumn 
sunset,  had  not  stretched  out  his  hand 
and  caught  him,  Tod  would  have  had  a 
bad  fall. 

"  Here,  drink  this,  and  you'll  be  able 
to  walk  without  sinking,"  said  the  little 
stranger.  He  handed  a  golden  cup  to 
Tod  as  he  spoke,  and  Tod  was  only  too 
glad  to  drink,  for  he  was  thirsty  after 
his  joo-mile  flight.  The  liquid  tasted 
like  all  the  kinds  of  soda,  water  you  ever 
heard  of,  poured  into  one  glass  and  flav 
ored  with  essence  of  orange  flower.  As 
soon  as  Tod  had  drunk  it  he  felt  as  light 
as  a  feather,  and  walked  on  the  cloud  as  if 
it  had  been  terra  firma,  which,  my  grand 
father  told  me,  is  Latin  for  solid  ground. 
38 


TOD  AND  THE  STOLEN  HOLIDAYS 

Ask  your  teacher  whether  the  old  gentle 
man  was  right. 

"What's  the  name  of  this  place,  and 
how  far  is  it  to  the  earth,  and  what's  your 
name,  and  what  do  you  do  up  here,  and 
where  can  I  get  such  a  pretty  suit?  It 
looks  like  the  view  from  our  verandah 
when  the  sun  is  going  down." 

"  I  can  tell  you're  from  the  earth  by 
the  questions  you  ask,"  said  the  other 
boy,  laughing.  He  was  such  a  pretty  fel 
low  ;  very  much  like  the  Cupids  on  val 
entines. 

"  Well,  I'd  never  learn  anything  if  I 
didn't  ask  questions.  Where  do  you  live, 
and  why  don't  you  fall  through  ?  " 

"  I'm  the  child  of  sunset.  But  say,  you 
haven't  learned  anything  so  far  by  asking 
questions,  for  you  don't  wait  for  the 
answers.  You  only  ask  to  keep  your 
tongue  from  getting  lazy." 

Tod  laughed  and  said  : 

39 


TOD  AND  THE  STOLEN  HOLIDAYS 

"  I  bet  I  can  beat  you  running," 
"  I  guess  not,"  said  the  Sunset  Boy, 
and  with  that  both  of  them  began  to  run 
as  hard  as  they  could;  but,  although  Tod's 
feet  hardly  touched  the  ground,  so  easily 
did  he  move  through  cloudland,  yet  the 
other  boy  moved  twice  as  fast,  and  soon 
vanished  behind  a  high  wall  that  sur 
rounded  a  huge  castle  that  looked  like 
those  cloud  palaces  that  rear  themselves 
on  June  days  when  you  are  lying  on 
your  back  out  in  the  fields  and  wish 
ing  that  the  long  vacation  would  begin. 
It  was  snowy  white,  and  had  towers 
and  minarets,  and  the  wall  of  salmon 
pink  that  surrounded  it  changed  its  shape 
continually. 

While  Tod  was  wondering  what  castle 
it  was,  and  whether  any  giants  lived  within 
it,  a  tall  warrior,  who  looked  exactly  as  if 
he  was  fashioned  out  of  a  silver  cloud, 
with  little  flashes  of  opalescent  fire  run- 
4o 


TOD    AND    THE    STOLEN    HOLIDAYS 

ning  through  him,  came  to  an  opening  in 
the  wall,  and  said  : 

"  What  is  your  name,  Earth  Boy,  and 
why  have  you  come  to  the  storehouse  of 
the  holidays  ? " 

Before  Tod  could  answer,  his  friend, 
the  Sunset  Boy,  popped  out  from  behind 
tile  wall  and  said  : 

u  He's  all  right.  He  can  run  half  as 
fast  as  I  can." 

The  warrior  seemed  astonished.  "  Why, 
that  is  impossible.  No  one  in  cloudland 
can  run  a  quarter  as  fast  as  you/' 

"  Well,  he  did.  I  leave  it  to  him  if  he 
didn't.  And  he's  hungry,  and  he  wants 
to  know  everything.  And  say  " — this  in 
a  lower  tone — "  can't  you  give  him  seven 
or  eight  holidays  ?  We  have  such  a  lot.'* 

"  But,"  said  the  warrior,  who  all  this 
time  had  been  changing  his  shape  like  an 
April  cloud  and  was  by  turns  a  Polar 
bear,  a  Hubbard  squash,  a  hippopotamus, 

41 


TOD    AND    THE    STOLEN    HOLIDAYS 

a  load  of  hay,  and  an  apple  tree,  "  there  are 
just  so  many  holidays.  If  I  let  him  have 
some,  the  earth  folk  will  have  to  do  with 
out  them." 

Tod  now  spoke  up  : 

"  Say,  my  father  says  he  wishes  there 
were  no  such  things  as  holidays.  He's  so 
used  to  working  that  he  never  knows 
what  to  do  on  a  holiday,  and  he  gets  aw 
ful  cross,  and  he's  always  glad  when  night 
comes.  Last  Christmas  he  said  he  wished 
Christmas  had  never  been  discovered." 

"  Well,"  said  the  warrior,  who  now 
looked  like  the  map  of  France,  and  a  mo 
ment  later  like  a  teapot,  "  if  that's  the  case, 
you  can  have  all  the  holidays  you  want. 
I  thought  people  prized  them  down 
there." 

"No,  indeed,"  said  Tod.  "Why, 
teacher  says  they  de-de-demoralize  the 
boys  and  we  never  do  as  well  the  day 
after  a  holiday." 


TOD    AND    THE    STOLEN     HOLIDAYS 

"  Come  inside,  then,  and  help  yourself. 
What  days  do  you  want  ?  " 

Tod  stepped  into  the  cloud  palace,  and 
found  himself  in  the  midst  of  banks  of 
such  beautiful  colors  as  you  never  saw, 
even  when  the  sun  was  doing  his  prettiest 
— bounding  billows  of  purple  and  saffron 
and  green  and  crimson  and  violet.  Tod 
was  only  a  boy,  and  boys  don't  go  in  for 
that  sort  of  thing  very  much,  but  he  told 
his  mother  afterward  that  it  was  all  so 
gorgeous  that  it  made  him  feel  like 
crying. 

"  Take  a  header  into  the  midst  of  them, 
and  you'll  reach  the  room  where  the 
Christmases  are  stored." 

Tod  dived,  and  a  moment  later  found 
himself  in  a  room  filled  to  overflowing 
with  Christmas  presents  and  Christmas 
trees  and  Christmas  horns  and  sleigh-bells 
and  yards  upon  yards  of  good  will. 

"  Now,"  said    his  guide,  who   had  be- 

43 


TOD  AND  THE  STOLEN  HOLIDAYS 

come  another  being  like  the  Sunset  Boy, 
only  older,  "  take  your  choice.  You  can 
have  one  Christmas  or  one  Fourth,  but 
you  can't  have  more  than  one  at  once. 
In  the  next  room  are  Lincoln  days,  and 
the  room  next  to  that  is  filled  with  Grant 
days." 

"  What's  a  Grant  day  ?  "  asked  Tod. 

"  Oh,  that's  a  holiday  that  they  haven't 
begun  to  use  yet,  but  when  they  do,  they'll 
find  me  prepared." 

Tod  thought  he'd  like  one  Christmas, 
and  he  had  no  sooner  expressed  the  wish 
than  he  found  himself  and  the  Sunset 
Boy  on  a  cloud  by  themselves  surrounded 
with  all  the  Christmas  presents  that  a  boy 
ever  wished  for — guns,  pistols,  marbles, 
books,  skates,  baseball  bats,  footballs, 
fencing  foils,  double  rippers,  wheels,  ko 
daks,  and  a  big  hand-organ  with  a  grin 
ning  monkey  sitting  on  it;  and  candy 
and  fruit  until  you'd  think  of  a  doctor. 

44 


TOD  AND  THE  STOLEN  HOLIDAYS 

He  told  the  Sunset  Boy  to  pitch  in,  and 
all  that  day  he  ate  and  read  and  rode  and 
shot  holes  in  distant  clouds,  and  took 
snap-shots  of  the  Sunset  Boy,  and  taught 
him  how  to  box,  and  by  nightfall  was  the 
tiredest  boy  who  ever  visited  a  cloud. 
He  had  had  enough  Christmas  to  last 
him  three  years. 

The  next  morning  he  woke  up  in  the 
Fourth  of  July  room,  and  he  wanted  to 
turn  over  and  go  to  sleep  ;  but  the  warrior 
said  that  he  must  choose  a  holiday,  as  long 
as  he  had  been  so  keen  for  it.  So  he 
chose  the  Fourth — because  the  warrior  had 
pulled  one  out  of  place  and  he  didn't 
want  to  disoblige  him. 

At  sight  of  the  heaps  of  firecrackers 
and  Union  torpedoes  and  grasshoppers 
and  fiery  dragons  and  cannons,  his  enthu 
siasm  returned  ;  and  when  he  found  him 
self  with  the  Sunset  Boy  on  a  new  cloud 
with  nothing  to  remind  him  of  Christmas 


TOD  AND  THE  STOLEN  HOLIDAYS 

on  it,  he  set  out  to  have  fun.  But  the 
premature  discharge  of  a  bunch  of  cannon 
crackers  set  fire  to  the  cloud  on  which 
they  were  sailing,  and  when  the  Sunset 
Boy  had  put  out  the  fire  with  a  rain  cloud, 
he  found  that  all  the  firecrackers  were 
wet,  and  so  the  morning  was  not  as  noisy 
as  you  might  have  supposed  it  would  be. 
In  the  evening  Tod  did  thoroughly  enjoy 
himself.  Every  set  piece  you  ever  heard 
of  was  there,  and  he  and  the  Sunset  Boy 
hung  them  on  the  edge  of  a  great  bank  of 
clouds  that  looked  portentous  and  lower 
ing  until  it  was  lighted  up,  and  then  it 
resembled  fairyland.  One  million  rockets 
going  off  at  once  make  a  spectacle  that 
you  don't  see  every  day  in  the  year,  and 
there  were  long  articles  in  the  earth  papers 
the  day  after,  telling  about  the  shooting 
stars  that  had  come  ahead  of  time.  But 
the  astronomers  were  able  to  give  good 
reasons  for  their  appearance,  and  not  a 
46 


TOD    AND    THE    STOLEN    HOLIDAYS 

soul  imagined  that  Tod  was  at  the  bot 
tom,  or  rather  the  top,  of  the  display. 

The  morning  after  the  Fourth,  Tod  had 
a  splitting  headache,  and  said  he  was  sick 
of  holidays,  and  he'd  like  to  go  down  to 
earth.  His  two  friends  bade  him  good-by, 
and  he  stepped  into  the  basket  of  the  bal 
loon,  and  thanks  to  a  little  help  from  a 
heavy  wind  cloud  that  he  fastened  under 
the  basket,  he  reached  the  earth  in  a  few 
minutes,  and  in  the  midst  of  a  terrific 
wind  storm. 

When  the  third  of  July  came  the  next 
month,  it  found  people  everywhere  mak 
ing  preparations  for  the  celebration  of  the 
Fourth,  but  greedy  Tod  had  already  cele 
brated  it  up  in  cloudland,  and  there  was 
no  Fourth.  People  everywhere  slept 
through  that  day,  and  there  were  some 
who  would  have  blessed  Tod,  but  the 
small  boys  were  furious.  They  could  not 
explain  it.  They  went  to  bed  with  all 

47 


TOD  AND  THE  STOLEN  HOLIDAYS 

their  ammunition  within  reach,  and  when 
they  woke  up  they  realized  that  somehow 
the  Fourth  had  come  and  gone  and  they 
hadn't  fired  a  shot — and  yet  the  ammuni 
tion  had  all  disappeared. 

Tod  slept  with  the  rest.  But  when  the 
Christmas  season  came  along,  he  hoped 
that  he  could  celebrate  it.  His  adven 
ture  was  now  six  months  back,  and  six 
months  in  a  boy's  life  are  a  good  deal 
more  than  half  a  year.  He  made  his 
preparations  for  Christmas  as  usual,  in 
common  with  all  the  rest  of  the  boys,  who 
make  much  of  the  great  holiday,  but  it 
was  all  to  no  purpose.  As  your  grand 
parents  may  have  told  you,  everybody 
slept  over  the  glad  season  and  woke  the 
day  after  with  much  better  digestions,  but 
deeply  regretting  that  they  had  lost  a 
Christmas  that  they  could  never  regain. 
And  Tod  felt  worse  than  anybody  else, 
and  realized  what  a  pig  he  had  been.  He 
48 


TOD  AND  THE  STOLEN  HOLIDAYS 

really    cultivated    his    generosity  to  good 
effect  for  the  next  few  weeks. 

But  the  following  year  all  the  holidays 
went  off  with  a  bang,  and  I've  heard  my 
grandfather  say  that  he  believed  it  did 
folks  good  to  go  without  a  holiday  once 
in  a  while,  as  they  appreciated  them  bet 
ter.  But  I  say,  a  place  for  each  holiday, 
and  every  holiday  in  its  place. 


THE    MILLION    SILVER 
DOLLARS 


THERE  were  just  two  rooms  and 
an  attic  in  John  Allen's  house 
— an  attic  of  which  the  flooring 
was  so  insecure  that  the  rats  had  several 
times  threatened  to  migrate  to  a  safer 
house.  Just  the  sort  of  place  for  a  future 
President  of  the  United  States  to  choose  as 
his  birthplace.  But  if  John  Allen  ever  be 
comes  President,  I  pity  the  people  of  this 
country.  Not  because  John  is  bad,  but 
because  he  is  lazy  and  suspicious,  two 

53 


THE     MILLION      SILVER      DOLLARS 

qualities  that  would  not  set  well  on  a  ruler 
of  a  republic. 

John  and  his  mother  were  so  poor  that 
the  rats  sometimes  felt  that  it  was  not  very 
creditable  to  their  rodencies  that  they  con 
tinued  to  live  off  of  the  hospitality  of  the 
poverty-stricken  pair;  but  after  all,  where 
there  is  food  there  is  bound  to  be  some 
crumbs,  and  so  the  rats  stayed  on;  and 
John  and  his  mother  wondered  if  people 
could  be  any  poorer  than  they  were  and 
continue  to  live. 

One  day  John  went  out  to  the  spring 
to  get  a  pail  of  water  for  his  mother,  as 
boys  have  done  ever  since  there  were 
mothers,  pails,  and  sons,  and  that's  more 
years  than  even  you  can  remember.  He 
lived  near  Summit,  New  Jersey,  on  the 
Watchung  range  of  hills. 

While  he  was  at  the  spring  and  won 
dering  how  he  could  get  through  the  rest 
of  the    day    without    doing    any  work,  a 

54 


THE      MILLION      SILVER      DOLLARS 

handsome  man  on  horseback  rode  up  and 
asked  John  very  civilly  how  far  it  was  to 
Murray  Hill,  which  is  the  name  of  a  ham 
let  near  Summit. 

"  About  a  mile,  sir,''  said  John,  who  was 
not  the  sort  of  boy  to  refuse  to  answer  a 
question,  although  he  liked  better  to  ask 
them. 

"  Thank  you,  my  boy.  Would  you 
like  a  million  dollars  in  silver  ?  "  You  see 
the  traveler  was  not  above  joking  with  the 
lad. 

Well,  now,  some  boys  would  prompt 
ly  have  said  no,  and  would  have  run 
home  with  the  water.  But  John  dearly 
loved  to  talk ;  so  he  set  the  pail  down  by 
the  edge  of  the  spring,  and  said,  "  Yes,  sir, 
I  would,  if  I  weren't  so  afraid  of  being 
robbed." 

The  traveler  burst  out  laughing. 

"  Why,  have  you  thought  of  that  part 
of  it  already  ?  That  doesn't  generally 

55 


THE      MILLION      SILVER      DOLLARS 

come  until  after  we  have  secured  the  mil 
lions,  and  then  it  is  a  disquieting  thought, 
I'll  admit.  So  you'd  fear  robbers  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir,  because  the  million  dollars 
would  tempt  them  if  it  was  known  I  had 
so  much  money,  and  I'd  never  dare 
do  anything  but  guard  it  day  and  night. 
But  that  wouldn't  be  so  bad,  for  then  I 
should  not  have  to  hoe.  I  read  some 
thing  in  a  paper  that  I  understood  to 
mean  that  it  is  wicked  to  hoe,  and  1 
don't  want  to  be  wicked,  and  anyhow 
hoeing  makes  me  tired  and  slants  my 
brow,  mother  says ;  so  I  generally  let 
her  do  it." 

Now  what  in  the  world  John  was  driv 
ing  at  I  don't  know,  but  it  only  shows 
that  children  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to 
read  the  newspapers — except  the  Chil 
dren's  Department. 

The  traveler  laughed  again,  and  said, 
"  Boy,  you  ought  not  to  be  so  suspicious, 
56 


THE      MILLION       SILVER       DOLLARS 

I  have  a  hundred  millions,  and  no  one 
ever  stole  a  cent  from  me." 

John  was  interested,  but  not  convinced. 
Because  the  traveler  had  been  free  from 
thieves,  it  did  not  follow  that  he  would  be. 
As  for  the  traveler,  although  he  had  started 
in  to  chaff  the  boy,  he  now  decided  to  try 
him  and  see  what  use  he  would  make  of  a 
million  dollars  and  whether  it  would  bene 
fit  him  or  the  reverse.  He  was  in  the 
habit  of  giving  a  million  dollars  to  found 
hospitals  and  libraries  and  soup  kitchens, 
as  freely  as  you  give  five  cents  to  the 
heathen  when  your  father  gives  it  to  you 
for  that  purpose.  So  a  million  dollars  for 
the  poor  boy  would  be  nothing  to  him, 
and  he  said  : 

"  Well,  if  you  will  leave  that  pail  of 
water  there  and  come  with  me  to  Summit, 
I'll  give  you  a  million  dollars  just  as  soon 
as  I  can  arrange  to  have  it  sent  out  from 
New  York.  Of  course,  I  have  not  that 

57 


THE     MILLION      SILVER      DOLLARS 

much  with  me — in  silver — for  my  horse  is 
built  for  speed  and  not  for  strength  ;  and 
of  course,  there  are  certain  conditions  that 
go  with  this  money.  I  never  give  with 
out  naming  some  condition.  You  must 
bury  all  the  money  except  what  you  need 
for  daily  use,  and  you  must  regularly  give 
to  the  poor  or  else  you  will  be  sorry." 

John,  like  most  people,  hated  gifts  that 
had  strings  to  them.  The  best  gift  is  a 
free  gift,  and  at  first  John  was  tempted  to 
say  to  the  horseman,  "  Oh,  keep  your 
money."  But  when  he  reflected  that  the 
million  dollars  would  not  only  buy  him  a 
new  suit  and  a  bicycle  and  a  new  shawl  for 
his  mother,  and  pay  for  the  services  of  a 
professional  hoeman  who  didn't  care  a 
scrap  about  his  brow,  he  left  the  spring  and 
the  pail  of  water  and  approached  nearer  to 
the  wonderful  stranger. 

"  When  do  you  think  the  money  will 

?» 


THE      MILLION      SILVER      DOLLARS 

The  traveler  looked  at  his  watch.  "  It 
is  now  twelve.  If  I  telegraph  to  have  it 
shipped,  I  ought  to  get  it  by  four  o'clock, 
for  I'll  have  it  sent  in  an  express  car.  If 
you  want  it,  jump  up  behind  me  at  once 
and  come  along,  as  I  have  a  directors' 
meeting  to  attend  at  two,  and  I  must  make 
haste." 

But  now  John  was  suddenly  overcome 
with  suspicions.  This  might  be  a  high 
wayman  who  would  rob  him  of  his  rags  ; 
so  he  said,  not  gratefully,  but  in  a  tone  of 
doubt,  "  I  don't  know  you.  Suppose " 

But  at  this  the  stranger  slapped  his 
horse's  flank  with  the  flat  of  his  hand  and 
was  out  of  sight  in  a  minute. 

John  filled  the  pail,  and  went  into  the 
house,  and  told  his  mother  what  had  hap 
pened.  She  was  one  of  the  most  artless 
women  who  ever  handled  a  hoe,  and  as 
unsuspicious  as  John  was  the  opposite,  and 
she  was  fond  of  money,  if  you  can  be  said 

59 


THE      MILLION      SILVER      DOLLARS 

to  be  fond  of  a  thing  you  never  have  seen; 
so  she  was  ill  pleased  at  his  news. 

"Why,  John,  you  should  not  have  sus 
pected  the  good  man.  I'm  sure  no  one 
ever  offered  us  half  as  much  as  that  before, 
and  it  is  not  likely  that  anyone  will  again. 
I  wish  you  had  gone  with  him." 

"  But,  mother,  I  thought  you  wanted 
the  water." 

"  Oh,  child,  I  was  not  so  thirsty  but 
that  I  could  have  waited  until  we  got  the 
million,  before  I  drank.  Many  men  have 
given  up  all  that  made  life  dear  to  get  a 
million,  and  what's  a  drink  of  water  against 
a  fortune  ?  " 

These  words  from  his  mother  made 
John  feel  that  he  had  not  been  wise;  so  he 
went  out  to  the  spring  and  waited  there 
for  the  rest  of  the  day,  although  there  was 
plenty  of  work  to  do  around  the  miserable 
house.  But  the  stranger  did  not  come 
back. 

60 


THE      MILLION      SILVER      DOLLARS 

The  next  day,  at  about  the  same  hour, 
John  again  took  up  his  station  at  the 
spring,  and  after  a  wait  of  an  hour,  he  was 
rewarded  by  seeing  the  stranger  riding 
back,  this  time  from  Summit.  As  soon  as 
John  saw  him,  he  ran  to  meet  him. 

"  Well,  boy,  fortune  does  not  often 
knock  twice  at  a  man's  door,  but  as  for 
tune  and  I  are  old  friends  I've  made  him 
do  it ;  and  if  you  think  that  you  can  trust 
me,  I'll  take  you  to  Summit  and  we'll  hunt 
up  that  million  dollars.  It's  there  by 
now." 

Almost  before  the  words  were  out  of  his 
mouth  John  had  leaped  to  the  horse's 
back  in  an  ecstacy  of  joy,  and  had  said, 
"  Go  where  you  will.  Mother  said  I  could 
trust  you." 

"  Now  that  was  really  kind  in  the  lady," 
said  the  stranger,  with  a  queer  smile.  "  I 
will  show  her  that  she  did  not  misjudge 
me.  I  will  confess  that  it  vexed  me  yes- 

61 


THE     MILLION      SILVER      DOLLARS 

terday  to  think  that  a  poor  boy  like  you 
should  be  afraid  of  a  millionaire ;  but  then 
I  thought  you  probably  never  saw  one  be 
fore,  and  so  I  decided  not  to  bear  malice. 
We'll  go  to  Summit,  and  I'll  point  out  the 
car,  and  pay  the  workmen  in  advance  to 
help  you  get  it  up  here,  and  then  you  must 
bury  it  and  use  it  as  I  have  prescribed, 
or-  -" 

The  traveler  did  not  finish  the  word,  but 
John  imagined  the  worst  and  sighed. 

The  way  to  Summit  was  neither  hard 
nor  long,  and  they  soon  reached  the  town, 
riding  over  a  bridge  and  right  down  to  the 
freight  station. 

The  stranger  inquired  at  the  office  for  a 
freight  car  that  had  nothing  whatever  in  it 
but  a  million  silver  dollars.  The  freight 
agent,  who  was  very  busy,  said  :  "  I  be 
lieve  that  such  a  car  came  in,  but  I've  got 
so  much  to  attend  to  that  I  can't  be  sure. 
Go  hunt  it  up  and  take  the  money,  and 
62 


THE     MILLION      SILVER      DOLLARS 

sometime  when  I'm  not  so  busy  you  can 
sign  a  receipt  for  it." 

So  the  stranger  hitched  his  horse  to  a 
trunk  that  stood  on  the  platform,  and  then 
walked  across  the  track  to  the  side-track  on 
which  lay  the  car.  Sure  enough,  when 
they  opened  the  door,  several  hundred 
dollars  rolled  out  and  all  over  the  ground. 
John  did  not  bother  to  pick  them  up,  as 
there  were  so  many  more  where  they  came 
from.  The  stranger  had  already  hired 
workmen  to  cart  the  money  away,  and 
twelve  men  with  coal-carts  now  appeared 
on  the  scene  all  ready  to  do  the  work  for 
which  they  had  been  paid. 

The  men  were  not  much  surprised 
to  see  all  the  money,  because  they  did 
not  for  a  minute  suppose  it  was  real. 
They  thought  it  was  the  waste  from  a 
tin  factory,  simply  because  it  was  be 
yond  belief  that  a  man  would  give  one 
million  silver  dollars  to  a  twelve-year-old 
63 


THE      MILLION      SILVER      DOLLARS 

boy,  and  you  can't  believe  what's  un 
believable. 

The  stranger  now  had  to  take  a  train  to 
New  York;  so  he  left  his  horse  as  a  pres 
ent  to  John,  and  shook  hands  with  him,  and 
John  was  so  busy  running  his  hands 
through  the  money  and  letting  it  drop  like 
sand  in  an  hour-glass  from  one  hand  to 
another,  that  he  actually  forgot  to  thank  his 
benefactor. 

It  took  the  men  several  hours  to  empty 
the  car ;  and  I'm  sure  I  don't  know  what 
Summit  people  were  doing  that  they  did 
not  notice  the  million  dollars  going  over 
the  bridge  and  up  the  hill  into  the  woods, 
but  they  didn't,  and  in  mid-afternoon  John 
arrived  without  accident  at  his  miserable 
shanty.  Oh,  I  forgot  to  say  that  when  he 
went  to  get  the  horse,  which  had  been 
hitched  to  the  trunk,  he  found  it  had  eaten 
the  whole  top  off  of  that  receptacle,  much 
to  the  disgust  of  a  woman  who  wanted  to 


THE     MILLION      SILVER      DOLLARS 

take  the  next  train,  but  who  had  to  go  into 
town  and  buy  a  new  trunk  and  pack  it  on 
the  station  platform  with  the  wind  blowing 
her  belongings  all  along  the  Delaware 
and  Lackawanna  road.  It  never  entered 
John's  selfish  head  to  pay  her  for  the  dam 
age  the  horse  had  done.  His  mind  was  too 
engrossed  with  his  suddenly  acquired 
wealth. 

His  mother  came  out  to  meet  the  cara 
van,  and  she  nearly  went  crazy  at  sight  of 
the  money.  Imagine  twelve  coal  carts 
loaded  to  overflowing  with  bright,  new, 
gleaming  dollars!  Why,  it  would  have  at 
tracted  attention  even  in  Wall  Street, 
where  every  man  is  a  millionaire — or 
wishes  he  were. 

4£  Bury  it  back  of  the  house,  John,  dear. 
The  earth  is  softer  there,  and  it  will  be 
easier  for  the  men  to  dig." 

So  said  his  mother;  but  John  replied,  "  I 
don't  know  as  I  care  how  hard  it  is  for 
65 


THE     MILLION      SILVER      DOLLARS 

them  to  dig,  mother.  They've  been  paid, 
so  what's  the  odds  ?  " 

Well,  now,  you  know  there  was  a  good 
deal  of  odds.  There's  no  use  in  piling 
work  on  a  man  or  a  woman  just  because 
you're  paying  him.  All  people  have  feel 
ings,  even  men  with  shovels  or  hoes. 

And  the  first  digger  took  a  dislike  to 
John  right  away,  and  determined  to  come 
some  dark  night  and  carry  off  some  of  the 
"  money  "  and  give  it  to  his  children  to 
play  store  with — you  see  none  of  them 
could  believe  it  was  real  money. 

But  John  suspected  him  of  having  such 
thoughts,  and  he  said,  forgetting  the  warn 
ing  of  the  stranger,  "  I  guess  I'd  rather 
have  it  where  I  can  have  my  eyes  on  it  day 
and  night.  Just  put  it  up  in  the  attic." 

Of  course  he  was  boss,  and  the  men  had 
to  obey  him  ;  so  the  first  cart  was  backed 
up  in  front  of  the  attic  window — which  was 
not  more  than  ten  feet  from  the  ground — 

66 


THE      MILLION       SILVER       DOLLARS 

and  the  men  began  to  shovel  the  money 
into  the  house.  At  the  first  shovelful 
about  half  fell  through  the  chinks  in  the 
floor  to  the  room  below,  and  the  rats  de 
serted  the  house.  But  disregarding  this 
warning,  John  bade  the  men  go  ahead  and 
shovel  it  all  in.  Well,  I'll  leave  you  to 
figure  how  packed  that  attic  became.  One 
million  silver  dollars  take  up  a  good  deal 
of  room  and  weigh  a  good  deal,  as  the  old 
house  evidently  thought.  For,  just  as  the 
last  shovelful  of  dollars  was  pitched  in, 
the  miserable  building  tottered  and  fell, 
and  Mrs.  Allen  barely  escaped  being 
hurled  under  it. 

But  the  worst  of  it  was  that,  as  John  had 
disobeyed  the  injunction  of  the  great  mil 
lionaire,  the  money  began  to  roll  and  roll 
through  the  woods  and  far  away.  Some  of 
it  went  into  the  brooks,  some  of  it  went 
into  woodchuck  and  snake  holes,  some  of 
it  rolled  a  mile  before  it  stopped,  but  like 
67 


THE     MILLION      SILVER      DOLLARS 

snow  in  a  hot  sun  it  all  disappeared,  and  a 
half-hour  later  John  and  his  mother  were 
as  poor  as  before. 

I  wish  that  I  could  say  that  John  had 
learned  a  lesson  and  ceased  to  be  suspicious, 
but  he  didn't.  To  this  day  he  haunts  the 
spring,  leaving  his  mother  to  do  all  the 
work. 

But  the  stranger  rides  no  more. 


THE    CROWS'    SINGING 
LESSON 


CROWS    are    everywhere    acknow 
ledged  to  be  very  wise  birds,  and 
if  there  is  no  proverb  "  as  crafty 
as  a  crow,"  there  ought  to  be.     But  it  is 
not  every  crow  who    can  read  the  news 
paper,  and  that  is  why  the  leader  of  the 
big  flock  that  made  things  unpleasant  for 
farmers  around  Norfolk,  Connecticut,  was 
called  the  King  of  all  the  Crows  in  New 
England.     For  he  could  read  print  like  a 
naturalized   voter,  and  many  and  many  is 
71 


THE     CROWS         SINGING      LESSON 

the  scrap  of  newspaper  that  he  has  picked 
up  in  his  claws  and  carried  away  to  the 
top  of  some  high  tree,  there  to  read  it  to 
a  solemn  conclave  who  said  few  words  un 
til  he  had  finished  it,  but  who  then  broke 
into  the  discordant  cawing  that  farmers 
hate  'to  hear  even  more  than  they  hate 
the  tenuous  whine  of  the  mosquito. 

It  was  a  £ray  day  in  January,  and  about 
two  hundred  big  crows  had  assembled  in 
an  oak  near  the  sand  lot  to  hear  a  paper 
read  by  the  King,  whom  the  rest  called 
Greyquill,  because  he  had  one  gray  feather 
in  his  head,  just  above  his  left  eye,  that 
gave  him  a  rakish  look. 

"  Now,  if  you'll  let  up  on  your  talking 
for  a  minute,  I'll  begin  to  read;  but  the 
first  one  to  interrupt  me  with  his  ugly 
voice  I'll  chase  clear  to  Canaan." 

"  Stop  talking,  everybody,"  yelled  each 
crow  to  every  other  until  the  noise  resem 
bled  that  in  a  church  fair  when  the  richest 


THE     CROWS'      SINGING      LESSON 

man  in  town  has  gone  away  without  buy 
ing  anything. 

Greyquill  made  a  few  vicious  jabs  at  the 
birds  who  sat  nearest  to  him  on  the  limb 
of  the  big  oak  that  was  their  hall  of  as 
sembly,  and  which  was  still  decorated  with 
the  dried,  yellow  leaves  that  winter's 
storms  had  been  powerless  to  dislodge, 
and  silence  fell  on  the  group  of  ill-favored 
birds. 

It  so  happened  that  the  only  boy  in 
Norfolk,  or,  indeed,  in  Litchfield  County, 
for  that  matter,  who  understood  crow  lan 
guage — Curtiss  Nettleton  by  name — was 
on  his  way  home  from  watching  the  golf 
ers,  and  he  passed  under  the  tree  just  as 
the  king  crow  cleared  his  throat  as  much 
as  it  is  possible  for  a  crow  to  do  such 
a  thing,  and  began  to  read.  The  crows 
were  all  so  curious  to  hear  what  was 
coming  that  they  did  not  notice  the 
boy  at  all.  And,  indeed,  they  would 

73 


THE     CROWS*      SINGING      LESSON 

not  have  cared  much  if  they  had,  for 
he  was  one  of  those  rare  boys  who 
inspire  confidence  in  all  animals.  Stray 
dogs  came  to  him  to  be  petted,  vicious 
bulls  had  a  pleasant  look  for  him,  strange 
cats  would  jump  upon  his  shoulders,  and 
robins  and  thrushes  would  boldly  hop 
into  the  pockets  of  his  sack-coat  to  get 
the  crumbs  that  he  always  kept  there  for 
just  such  occasions. 

"  I  don't  know  what  the  name  of  this 
paper  is,  as  the  head  line  is  torn  off,"  said 
Greyquill,  "  but  I  don't  suppose  that 
makes  very  much  difference  to  you.  And 
yet  I  think  I  read  something  in  this  same 
paper  that  was  not  at  all  friendly  to 


crows." 


"  Are  you  going  to  read  or  are  you 
only  going  to  talk  ?  It's  long  past  lunch 
time,  and  I'm  hungry,"  said  one  of  the 
youngest,  and,  necessarily,  one  of  the  pert- 
est  crows. 

74 


THE     CROWS         SINGING      LESSON 

Greyquill  gave  him  a  glance  that  made 
him  hop  down  at  least  three  branches 
nearer  the  ground,  and  then  the  old  crow 
continued  without  further  interruption. 

"  This  article  is  about  the  song-birds. 
It  says  :  (  Nothing  could  be  more  sense 
less  than  to  kill  or  in  any  way  injure  the 
various  song-birds  that  make  spring  melo 
dious  in  New  England.  What  if  they 
help  themselves  to  a  bit  of  corn  now  and 
then,  or  reward  themselves  for  a  full- 
throated  concert  by  picking  a  cherry  here 
and  there  ?  The  good  they  do  in  making 
the  world  less  sad  more  than  balances  their 
tiny  thefts,  and  the  man  who  shoots  or 
snares  a  song-bird  is  a  man  whose  heart  is 
so  far  out  of  place  that  no  physician  on 
earth  has  power  to  set  it  right.  Kill  the 
crows  if  you  will,  for,  besides  stealing, 
they  make  a  most  unmelodious  noise ; 
but  spare  the  little  opera  singers  who 
make  the  woodlands  merry,  and  who 

75 


THE     CROWS*      SINGING      LESSON 

have  contributed  to  the  poetry  and  litera 
ture  of  the  world  by  inspiring  the 
poets  and  prose  writers  to  emulate  their 
cadenzas/  ' 

Greyquill  read  very  well  indeed  for  a 
crow,  and  Curtiss  had  no  trouble  in  un 
derstanding  him.  Hardly  had  he  made  an 
end  when  he  was  assailed  with  so  many 
questions  that  you  could  have  heard  the 
crows  as  far  as  West  Norfolk,  and  that's 
three  miles  at  least. 

"  Is  that  why  farmers  hate  us  ? " 
"  Where  do  these  other  birds  get  their 
fine  voices  ?  "  "  I  never  thought  a  bobo 
link  could  sing.  Sounds  like  a  spring  in 
a  clock  that  had  been  set  a-jangling." 
"  Who  thinks  I  have  a  harsh  voice  ?  Hear 
me.  Caw,  caw,  caw." 

Everyone  of  the  two  hundred  had  some 
thing  to  say  about  the  article,  and  said 
it  in  the  most  raucous  voice,  so  that 
Curtiss  instinctively  put  his  hands  to 
76 


THE     CROWS*      SINGING      LESSON 

his    ears,    and     the    involuntary    motion 
caused  his  presence  to  become  known. 

"  Hello,  Curtiss.  What  do  you  think 
of  this  article  ?  "  asked  Greyquill,  flying 
down  in  front  of  the  boy  and  looking  at 
him  with  his  head  perked  on  one  side. 

"  Why,  I  think  you'd  better  cultivate 
your  voices,"  said  Curtiss,  laughing. 

"  That's  all  right.  But  who's  going  to 
teach  us  to  sing  ?  " 

"  No  one  can  teach  me  to  sing,"  said 
one  vain  crow ;  but  a  companion,  with  a 
voice  like  a  broken  buzz-saw,  said  :  "  Oh, 
really,  Jack,  you  make  me  weary.  Your 
voice  sounds  as  if  some  one  had  dumped  a 
load  of  gravel  on  it.  Now,  my  voice- 
Here  all  the  birds  began  talking  at  once, 
and  more  than  one  farmer  in  the  vicinity 
said  :  "  We're  going  to  have  a  curse  of 
crows  next  summer,  I'm  afraid." 

"  I  don't  know  what  to  tell  you,"  said 
Curtiss,  when  the  crows  stopped  for  breath. 

77 


THE     CROWS'      SINGING      LESSON 

"  I  know  a  bobolink  who  used  to  give 
singing  lessons,  but  he  went  away  last 
July,  and  I  don't  know  where  he  is 
now." 

"  Probably  in  South  Carolina,"  said  an 
old  bird  who  had  traveled  a  good  deal. 
"  Those  bobolinks  are  great  for  going 
South,  but  a  funny  thing  about  'em  is  that 
you  can't  get  'em  to  sing  down  there. 
Either  the  Southerners  don't  like  their 
kind  of  music  or  else  it's  too  hot  to  at 
tempt  anything  in  the  song  line  down 
there." 

"  Yes,"  said  Greyquill,  "  and  what's  the 
consequence  ?  They  shoot  'em  and  make 
pot  pies  of  'em  down  there.  That  just 
proves  what  this  fellow  says.  Mankind 
like  music,  and  when  they  don't  get  it, 
they  get  mad  and  begin  to  shoot.  I  be 
lieve  that,  if  we  all  learn  to  sing  something 
that  folks  will  call  sweet,  the  farmers  won't 
begrudge  us  the  little  corn  we  take,  and 
78 


THE     CROWS          SINGING      LESSON 

I'd  give  my  tail  feathers  to  find  out  where 
to  get  the  necessary  lessons." 

"  I  have  it,"  suddenly  said  Curtiss. 
"  There's  a  man  here  in  Norfolk  who  has 
a  mocking-bird,  and  the  mocking-bird  can 
sing  any  bird's  tune  he  has  ever  heard. 
Now,  if  you  want  me  to  ask  this  one  what 
he'd  charge  to  teach  you  all  to  sing,  I'll 
do  it  this  afternoon,  and  if  he's  willing,  I'll 
bring  him  down  to-morrow." 

"  Oh,  do.  The  very  thing,"  said  Grey- 
quill,  flapping  his  wings  for  joy ;  and  then 
there  was  another  deafening  clamor,  and 
the  birds  all  circled  through  the  air,  just 
to  work  off  their  spirits,  and  while  they 
were  flapping  heavily  around,  Curtiss  went 
home. 

Next  day  after  school,  Curtiss  went 
round  to  the  Perkins  house,  where  the 
mocking-bird  was  spending  the  winter. 
He  belonged  to  some  summer  people  who 
did  not  care  to  bother  with  a  bird  in  the 


THE     CROWS         SINGING      LESSON 

city  in  the  winter.  He  was  called  Silver- 
throat  and  he  could  imitate  a  bobolink, 
a  goldfinch,  a  robin,  a  thrush,  a  canary,  a 
song  sparrow,  and  a  half  a  score  of  foreign 
birds  whose  songs  are  never  heard  in  these 
parts,  for  the  city  people  had  once  taken 
him  on  a  voyage  around  the  world  and 
he  had  caught  a  new  air  with  each  chang 
ing  breeze. 

Curtiss  asked  him  what  he  would 
charge  for  teaching  the  crows  how  to  sing 
melodiously.  He  burst  out  laughing. 

"  Why,  I'd  as  soon  expect  to  teach  a 
pig  to  squeal  in  tune  as  to  teach  a  crow 
to  sing.  They  have  absolutely  no  ear  at 
all." 

"  Still,  you  are  so  very  clever,"  said 
Curtiss,  "  that  maybe  you  could  teach 
them  some  of  the  simplest  tunes,  and  I'm 
sure  it  would  make  a  difference  with  the 
farmers,  because  I  know  that  it  is  mad 
dening,  after  your  corn  has  all  been  pulled 

So 


THE      CROWS*      SINGING     LESSON 

up,  to  hear  a  crow  cawing  as  if  he  was 
laughing  at  you  instead  of  singing,  '  I 
merely  took  a  grain  or  two  to  keep  my 
voice  in  trim/  Come  along  with  me,  and 
we'll  talk  it  over  with  old  Greyquill. 
He's  a  very  decent  sort  of  a  chap,  and 
he  knows  a  lot,  and  has  been  every 
where." 

The  mocking-bird,  although  uncaged, 
was  not  in  the  habit  of  leaving  the  Per 
kins  farm,  and  he  welcomed  a  little  change ; 
so  he  readily  consented  to  accompany 
Curtiss  after  he  had  preened  his  feathers 
a  little — for  birds  are  almost  as  vain  as 
human  beings,  and  he  wanted  to  look  his 
best. 

Then,  with  Silver-throat  on  his  shoul 
der,  Curtiss  started  off  on  a  dog-trot  over 
to  the  sand  lot.  Long  before  they  reached 
there,  they  heard  the  crows  chattering  as 
hard  as  if  they  were  building  the  tower  of 
Babel.  But  as  soon  as  they  saw  the  pair 

Si 


THE     CROWS         SINGING      LESSON 

they  stopped.  Greyquill  flew  forward,  and 
offered  a  bug  to  Silver-throat,  who  ac 
cepted  it  with  a  pretty  turn  of  his  head 
and  a  little  trill  like  that  in  the  middle  of 
a  canary's  song. 

"  Well,  I  suppose  Curtiss  has  told  you 
what  we  want.  Can't  you  give  us  a  little 
concert,  so  that  we  may  judge  just  what 
sort  of  music  we  wish  to  learn  ?  "  said 
Greyquill,  with  as  much  of  an  air  as  if  he 
were  a  great  authority  on  music,  when  the 
fact  was  he  did  not  know  the  difference 
between  the  song  of  a  robin  and  that  of  a 
bullfinch. 

The  mocking-bird  was  not  unwilling  to 
show  his  powers,  and  he  sang  one  song 
after  another.  The  crows  sat  on  the 
branch  around  him,  and  said  after  each 
song :  "  How  sweet !  What  a  dainty 
little  thing!"  "That's  sweetly  pretty." 
"  That's  classical,  but  I  understand  it." 

Curtiss    could    hardly    keep    his    face 
82 


THE     CROWS         SINGING      LESSON 

straight.  He  had  attended  a  musicale  in 
New  York  the  winter  before,  when  he 
visited  his  cousin,  and  the  crows  acted 
for  all  the  world  like  the  musical  people 
there. 

"  Well,  now,  let's  come  to  business," 
said  Greyquill.  "  If  you  will  teach  us  half 
a  dozen  of  your  best  songs,  we'll  give  you 
a  year's  supply  of  corn." 

This  arrangement  was  very  satisfactory 
to  Silver-throat,  and  he  immediately  formed 
a  class  in  singing.  Naturally,  they  wanted 
to  learn  a  regular  song  before  they  had 
learned  to  run  the  scale,  and  of  all  songs 
in  the  bird  repertory  they  chose  that  of 
the  Patti  of  the  birds,  the  bobolink. 

"  Very  well,  if  you  think  you  can  do 
it,"  said  Silver-throat,  with  a  wise  smile. 
"  Bob-o-link,  bob-o-link,  ting  kertang 
kertink."  The  mocking-bird  sang  it  as 
sweetly  as  any  Robert  of  Lincoln  ever  did. 

"  Cahh,  cahh,  cahh,"  grated  the  crows. 
83 


THE     CROWS         SINGING      LESSON 

"  No,  no.  Bob-o-link,  bob-o-link,  ting 
kertang  kertink,"  repeated  the  mocking 
bird. 

"  Cawer,  cawer,  cawer,"  rasped  the 
crows. 

Sweetly  and  patiently  the  mocking-bird 
sang  once  more.  "  Bob-o-link,  bob-o- 
link,  ting-kertang-kertink." 

"  Cuh,  cuh,  cuh,"  scraped  the  crows 
in  despair. 

And  then  the  little  mocking-bird  shook 
his  head  and  said : 

"  It's  no  use,  my  dear  friends.  You're 
not  a  bit  musical,  and  it's  simply  a  waste 
of  time  to  try  to  teach  music  to  an  unmu 
sical  bird.  Your  old  caw  is  better  than 
these  fearsome  attempts  at  the  bobolink's 
song ;  and  if  you  band  together  and  avoid 
quarrels  among  yourselves,  most  of  you 
will  escape  the  farmer's  shotgun.  But  as 
for  singing,  I'd  as  soon  expect  to  teach 
Curtiss  how  to  fly.  I  can  fly,  and  I  can 
84 


THE      CROWS         SINGING      LESSON 

sing ;  but  he  can't  fly,  and  you  can't  sing. 
I'll  sing  among  you,  and  when  the  farmer 
comes  around,  you  fly,  and  we'll  all  be 
better  off." 

Then  the  crows  all  fell  to  talking  at 
once,  and  under  cover  of  the  confusion 
Curtiss  and  the  mocking-bird  came  away, 
laughing  so  hard  that  the  mocking-bird 
rasped  his  throat  and  couldn't  sing  any 
thing  more  difficult  than  a  Phoebe  bird's 
song  all  next  day. 


THE   STRONGEST    BOY   IN 
THE   WHOLE   WORLD 


LEWIS  JACKSON  was  just  eight 
years  old,  and  to  look  at  him  you 
would  not  have  suspected  that  he 
was  anything  more  than  a  happy,  hearty, 
ordinary  country  boy.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
however,  he  was  the  strongest  boy  in  the 
world,  and  all  on  account  of  the  "  iron  " 
greenings.  You  see,  Mr.  Jackson,  Lewis's 
father,  had  a  large  apple  orchard,  and  right 
in  the  middle  of  it  was  a  tree  of  greenings, 
and  the  day  that  Lewis  was  born  the  old 


THE          STRONGEST          BOY 

man  buried  a  lot  of  rusty  irons  and  iron 
barrel-hoops  and  the  scraps  of  a  cast-iron 
stove  at  the  foot  of  the  tree,  because  it  had 
never  borne  an  apple  and  he  thought  the 
strength  of  the  iron  rust  might  do  it  good. 
That  was  in  December,  and  early  in  May 
that  tree  was  so  covered  with  apple  blos 
soms  that  it  looked  as  if  an  immense  flock 
of  butterflies  had  descended  on  it  and  were 
resting  preparatory  to  flying  somewhere 
else.  That  summer  the  tree  was  loaded 
with  greenings,  and  Lewis's  brother,  a 
harum  scarum  child  of  six,  gave  the  seven- 
months-old  baby  one  of  the  apples  to  eat 
— not  only  that,  but  cut  it  up  for  him;  and 
instead  of  dying  in  convulsions,  the  infant, 
who  had  been  sickly  before,  thrived  upon 
it.  The  village  physician  was  called  in  to 
look  at  the  child,  and  he  immediately  said 
that  he  was  what  is  called  a  pudenza  ama- 
chyrtis — that  is,  one  to  whom  apples  are 
necessary.  He  advised  the-m  to  throw 
9o 


IN         THE         WHOLE         WORLD 

away  all  their  milk  and  let  the  child  eat 
all  the  apples  he  could — but  only  from  the 
one  tree.  "  He  is  likely  to  absorb  so 
much  iron  that  he  will  be  the  strongest 
child  in  the  world."  He  analyzed  one  of 
the  apples  when  he  got  home,  and  found 
that  it  was  ninety  per  cent,  iron  and  only 
ten  per  cent,  apple;  so,  of  course,  any  child 
who  ate  nothing  but  these  apples  would 
absorb  so  much  iron  that  his  muscles 
would  be  hard  as  anvils. 

Mr.  Jackson  was  one  of  those  men  who 
always  think  they  have  the  best  of  every 
thing.  His  cattle  were  the  heaviest  in  the 
country,  his  fruit  was  the  finest,  his  wife 
made  the  best  cheese,  his  dog  was  the  best 
sheep  dog,  his  Sunday  hat  was  the  cheap 
est  that  any  man  had  ever  worn  to  church. 
So  you  can  imagine  that  the  chance  of 
having  the  strongest  son  in  the  world  ap 
pealed  to  him,  and  he  told  his  wife  to 
make  enough  apple-butter  from  those 

91 


THE         STRONGEST          BOY 

greenings  to  supply  the  baby  when  the 
apples  themselves  were  all  eaten,  or  until 
more  apples  were  ripe. 

As  a  consequence,  when  little  Lewis 
was  eight  years  old  he  was  just  as  strong 
as  a  pair  of  cattle,  and  he  liked  nothing 
better  than  to  show  his  strength.  If  he 
hadn't  been  good-natured,  I'm  sure  I  don't 
know  what  might  have  happened,  because 
he  could  have  pulled  the  schoolhouse  to 
pieces  and  could  uproot  saplings  of  several 
years'  growth. 

Of  course,  it  was  a  great  saving  to  his 
father  to  have  such  a  strong  son.  Lewis 
would  clear  a  field  of  rocks  in  a  single  day, 
wrenching  them  out  of  the  earth  and  toss 
ing  them  over  the  fence  as  if  they  had 
been  pebbles  instead  of  bowlders.  Then, 
too,  he  did  all  the  ploughing.  He'd  start 
out  in  the  morning  with  some  apples  in 
his  pocket  and  a  plough  at  his  heels,  and 
by  noon  he'd  have  done  the  work  of  a  pair 
92 


IN        THE        WHOLE         WORLD 

of  cattle,  and  would  have  thought  it  fun, 
too.  But  if  for  any  reason  he  was  unable 
to  eat  for  a  few  hours,  his  strength  left  him 
and  he  was  just  like  other  boys.  He  used 
to  carry  a  supply  of  apples  in  his  pockets; 
but  one  day  when  he  was  pulling  a  load  of 
feed  up  from  the  village,  he  found  he  had 
eaten  his  last  apple,  and  his  strength  left 
him,  and  he  had  to  leave  the  wagon  by 
the  side  of  the  road  and  run  home  for 
an  apple.  But  when  he  returned,  he 
picked  up  the  shafts  and  skipped  up  the 
hills  like  a  colt  in  a  meadow  on  a  frosty 
morning. 

There  is  a  high  mountain  near  the 
Jackson  place  called  Mt.  Nomadnettuck. 
It  is  twenty  miles  high,  and  is  considered 
by  some  geographers  to  be  the  highest 
mountain  in  New  England,  although 
whether  New  England  extends  as  far  into 
the  air  as  that  is  a  thing  that  I  rather 
doubt,  so  the  mountain  may  not  be  in 

93 


THE         STRONGEST          BOY 

New  England  after  all.  Anyway,  the  view 
from  the  top  is  fine,  and  on  a  clear  day 
you  can  see  the  sun  from  its  apex.  One 
summer  Mr.  Jackson  had  a  houseful  of 
boarders,  and  they  were  all  crazy  to  go  to 
the  top  of  this  mountain,  but  he  had  no 
horse,  and  Lewis  was  too  busy  with  farm 
work  to  take  them  up  in  the  big  carryall. 
"  If  I  get  my  buckwheat  all  planted  by 
the  Fourth  of  July,  I'll  give  Lewis  a 
holiday,  and  he  can  drag  you  to  the  top. 
It's  too  far  to  walk,  and  the  road  is  too 
rough  for  my  cattle,  but  Lewis  has  been 
faithful  all  the  spring,  and  I'm  willing  to 
let  him  have  a  day  of  pleasure  if  he  wants 


it." 


Fourth  of  July  was  a  beautiful,  clear  day. 
Bright  and  early  in  the  morning  Lewis 
cleaned  the  carryall,  which  would  hold 
twelve  persons;  then  he  greased  the  wheels, 
and  ate  five  of  the  largest  apples  that  he 
could  find  on  the  tree.  I  think  I  see 

94 


IN        THE        WHOLE         WORLD 

some  of  my  readers  laughing  at  me  and 
saying  that  greenings  aren't  ripe  on  the 
Fourth ;  but  the  "  iron  "  greenings  were. 
After  the  boy  had  eaten  the  apples  he  felt 
his  muscles,  and  they  were  so  hard  that 
he  cracked  pig  nuts  on  them. 

Right  after  breakfast  the  picknickers 
came  out  and  clambered  into  the  wagon. 
There  were  three  stout  old  ladies,  two  fat 
old  gentlemen,  three  chubby  young  girls, 
and  four  portly  young  men,  besides  a  huge 
basket  of  lunch. 

"  Don't  forget  to  put  in  some  iron 
greenings  for  me,"  said  Lewis,  and  then 
went  into  the  barn  to  get  his  harness  on. 

Five  minutes  later  they  started.  cc  Be 
sure  to  keep  strong  and  be  back  in  time  to  do 
the  chores,"  said  his  father.  Lewis  trotted 
off  like  a  young  gazelle,  and  thanks  to 
the  five  apples  under  his  vest,  he  soon 
reached  the  top,  although  it  was  a  twenty- 
mile  climb  over  a  rough  mountain  road. 

95 


THE         STRONGEST          BOY 

The  picknickers  felt  well  repaid  for  his 
efforts.  It  was  a  clear  day,  and  sure 
enough,  they  could  see  the  sun  as  plainly 
as  if  it  had  not  been  94,999,980  miles 
away.  After  they  had  looked  at  the  sun 
until  their  eyes  ached,  they  were  ready  for 
lunch. 

The  rest  of  the  party  ate  such  foolish 
things  as  pies  and  cake  and  sandwiches, 
and  drank  milk;  but  Lewis  sniffed  at  such 
things,  and  ate  nothing  but  five  greenings. 
He  knew  that  they  would  be  sufficient  to 
carry  him  home  with  full  strength.  Poor 
boy,  he  did  not  know  that  a  mistake  had 
been  made  and  that  ordinary  greenings  had 
been  brought  up.  If  you  ask  how  there 
came  to  be  ordinary  greenings  on  the 
Fourth,  I  must  ask  you  not  to  interrupt 
me. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  they  climbed  into 
the  wagon,  and  Lewis  began  backing  it 
down.  It  was  easier  than  pulling,  for  there 
96 


IN        THE        WHOLE        WORLD 

was  no  danger  of  his  being  run  over.  He 
had  gone  about  a  mile  at  a  rattling  pace 
when  he  felt  hungry,  and  his  strength  left 
him  as  quickly  as  a  five-cent  piece  drops 
through  a  hole  in  your  trouser's  pocket. 
He  shouted  to  everybody  to  jump,  but  he 
didn't  speak  quick  enough,  and  just  then 
the  wagon  came  to  a  turn  in  the  road  and 
plunged  off  a  sheer  precipice  seven  miles 
high. 

Brave  little  Lewis  sprang  upon  the 
dashboard  and  determined  to  go  down 
with  his  party,  but  he  felt  that  they  were 
all  in  a  ticklish  position,  and  he  wished  he 
had  chosen  his  apples  himself.  He  looked 
above  him  in  desperation,  and  saw  a  bal 
loonist  who  had  been  making  a  Fourth  of 
July  ascension.  He  made  a  megaphone  of 
his  hat,  and  called  to  the  aeronaut  to  come 
down  and  help  them.  Quick  as  a  flash 
the  good-natured  balloonist  let  out  gas 
and  dropped  alongside  of  the  descending 

97 


THE         STRONGEST          BOY 

picknickers,  who  were  beginning  to  faint 
from  fright.  He  made  the  wagon  fast  to 
the  basket  of  the  balloon,  and  then  they 
went  down  easily  enough,  and  in  less  than 
ten  minutes  they  had  alighted  in  a  meadow 
about  a  mile  from  the  house.  Then  Lewis 
thanked  the  aeronaut  and  ran  home  to  get 
some  apples.  After  he  had  eaten  the 
apples  he  returned  and  pulled  the  wagon 
load  of  picknickers  back  to  the  farm, 
where  he  arrived  just  at  chore  time. 

But  after  that  eventful  day  Lewis  always 
carried  a  supply  of  apples  in  a  bag  slung 
over  his  shoulders.  And  if  it  hadn't  been 
for  the  kind  balloonist,  the  picknickers 
would  have  had  a  nasty  fall.  It's  no  joke 
to  drop  seven  miles. 


THE  TOUCH   OF    GOLD 


WHEN  old  Mr.  Carpenter  died,  he 
left  one  son,  Hugh  Carpenter, 
and  that  was  all  he  left.  His 
fortune  had  been  swallowed,  and  Hugh 
found  himself,  at  twelve  years  old,  father 
less  and  penniless.  He  had  made  good 
use  of  his  schooling  up  to  that  time,  and 
he  knew  more  than  some  boys  of  fifteen, 
but  he  was  hardly  prepared  to  go  out  into 
the  big  world  and  earn  his  living.  His 
father  had  had  many  friends  when  he  was 


101 


THE  TOUCH  OF  GOLD 

rich,  but  they  did  not  tumble  over  each 
other  in  their  efforts  to  help  Hugh  to  a 
position,  and  I  don't  know  but  that  he 
would  have  had  to  go  out  and  sell 
newspapers  if  Calvin  Cuthbert,  who 
lived  next  door  to  him,  had  not  offered 
him  a  position  as  cash  boy  in  his  ten- 
cent  store. 

Mr.  Cuthbert  did  not  do  this  because 
he  had  a  kind  heart,  but  because  Hugh's 
extremity  was  his  opportunity,  and  he  got 
him  to  work  at  just  half  the  wages  that  are 
generally  paid  for  the  same  amount  of 
labor. 

The  morning  that  Hugh  began,  Mr. 
Cuthbert  called  him  into  his  private  office 
and  said  to  him  :  "  Hugh,  I  have  done  a 
great  deal  for  you.  Your  father  did  less, 
for  he  left  you  poor.  I  have  put  you  in 
the  way  of  becoming  rich,  if  you  attend  to 
business  and  come  here  at  7  in  the  morn 
ing  and  work  hard  all  day  until  6  at  night, 


THE  TOUCH  OF  GOLD 

or  9  on  Saturdays  and  the  Christmas 
holidays,  without  extra  pay  for  overtime. 
You  will  receive  one  dollar  a  week,  and  I 
hope  that,  besides  trying  to  earn  it,  you 
will  always  remember  that  it  was  I  who 
saved  you  from  starvation." 

Hugh  was  a  simple-hearted  boy,  and  had 
never  been  allowed  to  have  much  spending 
money,  so  that  a  dollar  a  week  seemed 
good  pay,  and  he  was  of  so  grateful  a  dis 
position  that  he  felt  he  could  not  do 
enough  to  show  that  he  appreciated  his 
neighbor's  efforts  in  his  behalf.  He  was 
always  on  time,  worked  hard  at  whatever 
he  had  to  do,  and  found  that  by  boarding 
at  a  cheap  place  and  spending  nothing 
upon  foolishness  he  was  only  five  dollars 
in  debt  at  the  end  of  the  first  month.  He 
went  to  Mr.  Cuthbert,  and  asked  him 
when  he  could  expect  a  raise.  That  ben 
evolent  man  was  exceedingly  angry.  "  Do 
you  think  that  I  am  made  of  money  ?  If 
103 


THE     TOUCH     OF     GOLD 

you  had  come  to  work  here  in  the  ordi 
nary  way  by  answering  an  advertisement, 
I  might  raise  your  salary  at  the  end  of  the 
year;  but  as  I  was  kind  enough  to  save  you 
from  starving,  it  will  be  two  years  before  I 
think  of  raising  it,  and  I  think  a  long 
time  before  I  act.  Be  thankful  that  you 
did  not  starve  a  month  ago." 

"  But  I  have  to  pay  two  dollars  a  week 
for  my  board,  sir." 

"  Hugh,  I  did  not  hire  you  in  order  to 
hold  dialogues  with  you.  I  am  busy.  Get 
busy  yourself." 

Hugh  felt  that  Mr.  Cuthbert  was  a 
good  man,  but  this  did  not  make  it  any 
easier  to  see  how  he  was  to  pay  his  land 
lady,  and  she  could  not  afford  to  lodge 
and  board  him  for  nothing. 

That    morning    a   tall,  thin  man,  with 

slanting  eyebrows  and  a  black   mustache 

and  goatee,  came  into  the  store.       He  was 

a  famous  magician,  and  I  dare  say  that  you 

104 


THE  TOUCH  OF  GOLD 

have  seen  him  draw  forth  rabbits  and  cana 
ries  and  goldfish  from  a  stovepipe  hat. 
He  saw  that  Hugh  looked  downcast,  and 
as  he  was  fond  of  children,  he  asked  him 
what  the  trouble  was.  Hugh  told  him, 
and  the  magician  shook  his  head  and  said 
something  about  Mr.  Cuthbert  that  was 
not  complimentary. 

"  My  boy,  I  can't  do  anything  for  you 
unless  I  give  you  the  touch  of  gold." 

"  What  is  that  ?  "  asked  Hugh. 

"Why,  whatever  you  touch  will  turn 
into  gold." 

"  And  can  you  do  that  for  me  ?  "  asked 
Hugh,  his  eyes  glistening. 

"  I  can  try.  Come  to  the  soda  foun 
tain." 

Hugh  was  a  little  afraid  that  Mr.  Cuth 
bert  would  come  out  and  scold  him  for 
leaving  his  post  of  duty,  but  he  decided  to 
risk  it  and  make  it  up  at  lunch  time  by 
staying  in. 

105 


THE  TOUCH  OF  GOLD 

"  What'll  you  have  ?  "  asked  the  magi 
cian. 

"  I'll  take  vanilla — no,  I'll  take  pine 
apple — no,  I  guess  I'll  take  lemon." 

"  Take  all  three  if  you  want,"  said  the 
magician;  so  Hugh  ordered  all  three.  Just 
before  Hugh  drank  the  strange  mixture 
the  magician  emptied  a  powder  into  the 
glass  and  passed  his  wand  over  it,  and  it 
fizzed  up  much  higher  than  ordinary  soda 
water,  and  a  fountain  of  parti-colored  fire 
burst  from  the  foam  and  descended  in 
brilliant  sparks  upon  the  marble  counter. 

"  Drink  it,  my  boy.  Don't  be  afraid," 
said  the  magician  kindly,  and  Hugh  drank 
it,  and  pronounced  it  the  best  soda  he  had 
ever  tasted. 

"  Now  pay  for  it,"  said  the  magician. 

"  I  have  nothing  in  my  pocket  except 
a  button,"  answered  Hugh,  quite  crest 
fallen,  and  the  soda-water  clerk  looked  as 
if  he  were  going  to  call  an  officer. 

106 


THE  TOUCH  OF  GOLD 

"  The  button  will  do  very  well,  I  guess/' 
said  the  magician,  and  Hugh  drew  it  forth 
from  his  pocket,  and  it  was  pure  gold. 

The  soda  clerk  was  at  first  afraid  to  take 
it,  thinking  it  was  brass,  but  he  tested  it, 
and  then  he  wanted  to  give  Hugh  change; 
but  the  magician  said  that  that  was  not  al 
lowable,  and  with  that  he  disappeared.  He 
was  near  the  door,  and  the  door  was  open, 
so  I  suppose  he  went  out  into  the  street ; 
but  he  did  it  more  quickly  than  I  could, 
and  Hugh  was  astonished  and  vexed  be 
sides,  for  he  wanted  to  thank  the  kind 
magician  for  the  drink  and  the  gift. 

Now,  it  so  happened  that  that  morning 
one  of  the  sales-girls  had  to  go  home  sick. 
She  had  stood  for  five  days  selling  baa 
lambs  and  dolls  for  ten  cents  apiece,  and  I 
suppose  she  felt  like  sitting  down,  and  of 
course  the  only  way  to  do  that  was  to  be 
sick.  For  Mr.  Cuthbert  was  upright,  and 
he  wanted  all  his  clerks  to  be  upright, 
107 


THE  TOUCH  OF  GOLD 

too.  So  Hugh  was  put  in  her  place,  and 
told  to  sell  baa-lambs  and  dolls  for  ten 
cents  until  he  dropped,  although  they 
didn't  word  it  just  that  way. 

Now  he  had  kept  his  hands  at  his  sides 
after  paying  for  the  soda,  and  consequently 
had  turned  nothing  more  into  gold. 
Whether  it  came  by  accident  or  design  I 
can't  pretend  to  say,  but  it  is  a  fact  that  he 
didn't  exercise  his  new  power  until  a 
woman  came  in  who  wanted  a  baa-lamb  for 
a  three-year-old  child. 

"  We're  all  out  of  those  for  three-year- 
olds,"  said  Hugh  politely,  "  but  I  have 
some  nice  ones  for  a  two-year-old  and  two 
sizes  larger  for  four-year-olds." 

"  I'll  take  a  four-year-old  lamb — al 
though  I  should  think  it  would  be  a  sheep 
in  that  case,"  said  the  lady,  smiling  sweetly. 
There  is  nothing  that  makes  people  smile 
so  sweetly  as  jokes  of  their  own  manufac 
ture. 

108 


THE     TOUCH     OF     GOLD 

Hugh  smiled,  but  not  as  sweetly  as  the 
lady,  and  then  he  took  hold  of  the  lamb, 
when  it  instantly  became  pure  gold. 

He  was  now  in  a  quandary.  He  was 
strictly  honest,  and  he  knew  that  as  they 
ordinarily  were  the  toys  were  not  worth 
over  ten  cents.  Nothing  in  a  ten-cent 
store  ever  is,  else  it  would  not  remain  a 
ten-cent  store  very  long.  But  a  gold  baa 
lamb  is,  naturally,  worth  far  more  than  a 
dime. 

Seeing  the  lamb  change  color  and  noti 
cing  Hugh's  hesitation,  the  lady  said : 
"  Come,  little  boy,  give  me  my  lamb  and 
my  change,  for  I  must  be  going."  But  he 
said :  "  I'm  afraid  I  can't  sell  you  this 
lamb.  If  you  will  pick  out  another  for 
yourself,  you  may  have  it;  but  I  have  the 
touch  of  gold,  and  I  must  not  handle  the 
toys  unless  Mr.  Cuthbert  wants  to  change 
this  place  into  another  Tiffany's  and  I 
have  not  talked  to  him  about  it  yet." 
109 


THE  TOUCH  OF  GOLD 

But  the  lady  knew  gold  when  she  saw 
it,  and  she  naturally  wanted  the  greatest 
bargain  in  New  York,  and  she  began  to 
talk  so  excitedly  that  good  Mr.  Cuthbert 
came  up  and  said  :  "  Here,  Hugh,  what  is 
the  trouble,  and  what  are  you  doing  be 
hind  the  baa-lamb  counter  ?  " 

"  I  have  the  touch  of  gold,  sir,"  said 
Hugh,  "  and  Miss  Dyer  was  sick,  and  I 
took  her  place,  and  I've  turned  this  baa 
lamb  into  gold,  and  so  of  course  it's  worth 
more  than  ten  cents."  As  he  spoke  he 
touched  the  brass  counter  rail  inadvert 
ently,  and  it  turned  into  gold  in  a  twink 
ling. 

Mr.  Cuthbert  was  a  hard-hearted  man, 
but  he  was  touched  at  Hugh's  honesty. 
He  also  saw  that  the  boy  was  more  valu 
able  than  his  whole  force  of  clerks.  He 
told  the  lady  that  she  might  have  the  baa 
lamb  at  ten  cents  if  she  would  tell  all  her 
friends.  Then  he  offered  to  pay  Hugh 

no 


THE  TOUCH  OF  GOLD 

five  dollars  a  week  if  he  would  stay  and 
turn  one  or  two  articles  on  each  counter 
into  gold,  so  that  they  would  serve  as  an 
attraction  for  customers. 

Hugh  thought  the  matter  over  during 
his  lunch  hour — for  he  forgot  and  took  it, 
after  all.  "  I  have  nothing  of  my  own," 
he  argued,  "except  the  clothes  on  my 
back,  and  it  won't  do  me  any  good  to  turn 
things  into  gold,  for  they  won't  be 
worth  any  more  to  me  than  before.  Be 
cause  I  turn  Mr.  Cuthbert's  baa-lambs 
into  golden  ones,  it  doesn't  follow  that  they 
are  mine.  Five  dollars  a  week  is  a  big 
sum  of  money,  and  Mr.  Cuthbert  gave  me 
a  place  when  no  one  else  would.  I  owe 
him  all  that  I  can  do  for  him.  I  will  ac 
cept  his  offer." 

During  his  luncheon  Mr.  Cuthbert  de 
cided  that  he  would  offer  Hugh  six  dollars 
a  week  and  get  him  to  turn  everything 
into  gold.  He  could  then  sell  out  at  auc- 


THE  TOUCH  OF  GOLD 

tion  and  realize  even  more  than  he  did  on 
the  ten-cent  articles.  He  felt  sure  that  the 
extra  dollar  would  hold  Hugh,  for  he  was 
a  good  judge  of  character. 

Now,  whether  the  magician  heard  of  it 
and  was  vexed  that  Hugh  did  not  make 
more  of  his  golden  opportunity,  I  cannot 
say ;  but  it  is  a  fact  that  after  the  lunch 
hour  Hugh  found  he  had  lost  his  power. 
He  went  around  touching  everything  in 
the  place,  but  he  could  not  make  anything 
worth  more  than  a  dime.  But  although 
Mr.  Cuthbert  was  close,  he  was  also  a  man 
of  his  word,  and  having  told  Hugh  that 
he  would  pay  him  five  dollars  a  week,  he 
continued  to  do  so,  and  Hugh  was  so 
diligent  that  he  advanced  higher  and 
higher,  until  at  last  he  was  made  a  partner 
in  the  business,  and  to-day  he  is  so  rich 
and  all  things  he  undertakes  are  so  pros 
perous  that  people  say  of  him,  "  He  has 
the  touch  of  gold." 


THE          TOUCH  OF  GOLD 

But  if  he  had  not  been  so  mindful  of 
Mr.  Cuthbert's  interests  he  might  still  have 
the  veritable  touch  of  gold  that  he  pos 
sessed  for  one  short  hour,  and  I'm  free  to 
admit  that  that  would  have  been  far  more 
interesting. 


TARKUS  AND  THE  IMITA 
TION   LIQUID  AIR 


IT  is  a  foolish  thing  to  let  a  boy  have 
just  what  he  wants.    Of  course  there 
are  some  boys  who  never  want  any 
thing  they  ought  not  to   have,  but  they 
are  so  few  in  number  that  it  is  not  worth 
while  to  take  them  into  account.     One  of 
the  main  reasons  that  boys  have  parents 
is  that  the    parents    may  with   becoming 
firmness  refuse  to  let  them  have  the  moon 
and  cigars  and  a  night  key  and  other  in 
judicious    things    desired    of  young    men 
117 


TARKUS  AND  THE 

from  babyhood  up.  But  Mr.  Greenwich 
was  old  enough  to  be  a  grandfather  when 
his  first  son  was  born,  and  as  grandfathers 
are  notoriously  easy  with  children,  he  let 
Aristarchus — for  such  was  the  outlandish 
name  that  he  gave  the  boy — have  any 
thing,  in  reason  or  out  of  reason  or  in  sea 
son  or  out  of  season,  that  he  expressed  a 
wish  for. 

Now  it  was  about  the  time  that  Aris 
tarchus  was  thirteen  that  liquid  air  began 
to  be  talked  about,  and  after  a  while  it  be 
came  possible  to  buy  it  in  small  quantities, 
with  certain  restrictions.  A  man  can't 
rush  into  a  drug  store  in  great  haste  and 
say  :  "  Give  us  a  quart  of  laudanum  or 
strychnine,"  and  get  it,  you  know.  The 
druggist  will  have  a  lot  of  questions  to 
ask.  "  Do  you  intend  to  take  it  all  your 
self,  or  will  you  share  some  with  your 
family  ? "  he  will  say,  and,  after  the  in 
tending  purchaser  has  satisfied  him  that 
ii! 


IMITATION         LIQUID         AIR 

he  does  not  want  it  for  himself  alone,  he 
lets  him  have  it  and  takes  down  his  name 
and  address. 

So  it  is  with  the  liquid-air  shops.  The 
fluid  is  kept  in  open  bottles — for  you 
can't  pen  up  liquid  air  safely,  and  the 
clerks  in  charge  won't  sell  a  bit  until 
they  are  satisfied  that  you  are  a  reliable 
person  with  no  mischievous  proclivities. 
Then  the  clerk  makes  you  sign-  a  re 
ceipt  for  it,  and  after  you  have  paid  a 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars  for  a  pint,  two 
hundred  for  a  quart,  two  hundred  and 
fifty  for  a  gallon,  and  three  hundred  for  a 
peck — if  my  liquid  measure  is  wrong,  it's 
because  I  was  absent  from  school  with  the 
measles  when  the  class  took  up  liquid 
measure — I  say,  after  the  proper  payment 
has  been  made,  the  purchaser  is  allowed 
to  take  the  bottle  out  with  many  cautions 
against  its  improper  use. 

One  day  Aristarchus  read  in  a  book 
119 


N      D 


that  liquid  air  was  as  cold  as  300  degrees 
below  zero.  It  so  happened  that  the  day 
was  insufferably  hot.  A  few  lines  further 
on  he  read  something  like  "  sick  rooms 
may  be  cooled  by  the  use  of  liquid  air." 

He  dropped  the  book,  and  jumped 
from  the  bed  where  he  had  been  swelter 
ing.  "  If  sick  rooms,  why  not  well  rooms 
— any  old  rooms  in  fact?  I'll  make  papa 
buy  me  a  bottle  of  this  air." 

Now  if  Aristarchus's  father  had  been  a 
man  of  the  normal  age  for  a  parent — that 
is,  anywhere  between  twenty-two  and  fifty- 
two — he  would  have  said  "  No  sirree " 
when  Tarkus  (for  by  that  hideous  nick 
name  he  was  known)  asked  him  for  a  pint 
bottle  of  liquid  air.  But  as  Mr.  Green 
wich  was  seventy-two,  he  smiled  pleasantly 
and  said:  "I'll  get  you  some  next  Satur 
day  when  I  come  up  again."  Tarkus  and 
his  mother  were  boarding  for  the  summer 
up  in  the  country. 


IMITATION         LIQUID         AIR 

The  clerk  in  charge  of  the  store  was  all 
out  of  liquid  air,  but  he  had  something 
else  "just  as  good."  So  if  the  effects  of 
this  fluid  are  not  according  to  Tripler,  it 
is  no  fault  of  the  real  liquid  air.  The 
clerk  was  in  a  hurry  to  shut  up  shop — it 
was  Saturday  afternoon,  and  he  wanted  to 
go  to  the  ball  game — and  he  did  not  ask 
Mr.  Greenwich  a  single  question  or  make 
him  sign  any  receipt.  He  told  him  not  to 
drop  the  bottle,  and  then  followed  him  out 
to  close  the  shutters  and  shut  up  shop. 

Mr.  Greenwich  hastened  to  the  train, 
and  was  soon  hurrying  up  into  the  coun 
try.  The  cars  were  so  hot  that  he  longed 
to  open  the  bottle  and  pour  a  little  air 
on  the  floor,  but  he  knew  that  Tarkus 
wouldn't  want  any  one  to  use  the  air  but 
himself,  so  he  refrained.  As  soon  as  he 
reached  the  boarding-house,  Tarkus  ran 
out  to  the  wagon  and  said :  "  Did  you 
get  my  liquid  air  ?  " 


TARKUS  AND  THE 

"Sh!  Yes,  I  did,"  said  the  old  gentle 
man  in  a  low  tone.  He  must  have  felt 
that  the  other  men  who  had  come  up  to 
spend  Sunday  would  feel  nervous  if  they 
knew  that  Tarkus  was  to  have  a  bottle  of 
unlimited  mischief  about  his  clothes. 

There  were  two  or  three  choice  spirits 
known  of  Tarkus,  and  with  the  bottle 
resting  securely  in  his  hip-pocket,  he  went 
forth  to  find  them.  They  were  country 
boys.  There  were  city  boys  at  the  board 
ing-house,  but  they  were  fretful,  sickly 
fellows,  and  Tarkus  avoided  them  when 
he  could.  He  found  Dick  Leonard  and 
Billy  Mason  out  behind  the  Masons' 
.barn,  smoking  corn-silk  cigarettes. 

"  Say,  fellers,  I've  got  her.  Maybe  we 
won't  be  hot  any  more." 

It  was  intolerably  hot.  The  thermom 
eter  was  up  in  the  nineties,  and  the  air  was 
damp  and  muggy — -just  the  day  for  a 
moderate  application  of  liquid  air.  Tar- 


IMITATION          LIQUID          AIR 

kus  had  read  an  article  about  liquid  air 
to  the  boys,  and  he  supposed  that  he  had 
a  bottle  of  the  real  thing. 

"  What  say  we  do — -just  get  cool  or  try 
coasting  ? " 

"  Coasting,"  yelled  Billy  ;  "  you  forget 
you're  hot,  if  you're  coasting." 

The  Masons'  pump  stood  at  the  brow 
of  a  steep  hill  that  ran  down  in  the  form 
of  a  lane  to  what  they  called  the  "  night 
lot,"  where  the  cows  were  turned  after 
evening  milking. 

"  Now,  you  two  boys  pump  for  all 
you're  worth,  and  I'll  freeze  the  water  un 
til  we  have  coated  the  whole  hill  with  a 
sheet  of  ice,"  said  Tarkus. 

The  boys  threw  away  their  half-smoked 
cigarettes,  and  sprang  to  the  pump.  The 
water  poured  forth  in  a  copious  stream, 
and  trickled  down  the  hill,  but  not  nearly 
fast  enough  to  suit  the  boys;  so  they  over 
turned  the  drinking  trough,  which  was  full 
1*3 


TARKUS  AND  THE 

of  water.  Then  Tarkus  poured  a  little  of 
the  imitation  liquid  air  out.  If  it  had  been 
the  real  thing,  it  would  have  rolled  out 
like  smoke  and  would  not  have  frozen  the 
water  ;  but  as  it  was,  the  water  froze  solid 
— so  for  the  boys'  purposes  the  imitation 
was  better  than  the  real  article.  Then 
they  filled  the  trough  once  more  and  again 
upset  it,  and  after  a  while  the  whole  hill 
was  a  glare  of  ice.  Then  Billy  got  his 
double-ripper  out  of  the  barn,  and  with 
loud  cries  of  joy  they  coasted  down  hill  on 
ice  in  midsummer. 

If  the  affair  had  ended  there,  all  would 
have  been  well  and  old  Mr.  Greenwich 
wouldn't  have  gotten  into  trouble  ;  for  the 
ice  would  have  melted  in  a  little  while,  the 
boys  would  have  had  their  fun,  and  no 
one  would  have  been  hurt  in  any  way. 
But  Tarkus,  instead  of  putting  the  bottle 
in  some  safe  place,  carried  it  in  his  hip- 
pocket,  and  at  the  fifth  or  sixth  coast  he 
124 


IMITATION          LIQUID         AIR 

tumbled  off  the  sled  and  broke  the  bottle. 
In  an  instant  the  mercury  in  that  vicinity 
dropped  a  hundred  degrees. 

As  bad  luck  would  have  it,  a  summer 
shower  had  just  begun,  and  the  rain  turned 
to  hail  in  a  twinkling.  The  boys  gazed  at 
each  other  in  silence  for  a  minute,  and 
then  looked  at  the  fields  on  either  side  of 
the  lane.  On  one  side  had  stood  tasseled 
corn,  on  the  other  pole  beans,  while  at  the 
extreme  foot  of  the  hill  was  an  apple 
orchard.  They  would  have  waited  to 
see  the  leaves  and  the  corn  and  fruit 
blasted  in  the  bitter  cold,  but  they  were 
afraid  of  getting  blasted  themselves.  They 
were  ,'freezing,  and  were  almost  too  be 
numbed  to  get  up  the  slippery  hill  and 
into  Billy  Mason's  house. 

Mrs.  Mason,   Billy's  mother,  was  put 
ting  up  tomato  ketchup,  and  the  perspira 
tion  was  rolling  from  her  forehead  as  she 
bustled  about  the  hot  kitchen,  with  all  the 
125 


N       D  T      H 


windows  open  and  the  torrid  shrilling  of 
the  locusts  filling  the  air.  To  be  con 
fronted  by  three  blue-lipped  boys,  who 
with  chattering  teeth  told  her  they  were 
freezing  to  death,  was  to  make  her  believe 
that  she  had  gone  crazy.  And  when  she  felt 
their  poor  numb  hands  and  the  coldness 
of  their  summer  shirts,  she  was  sure  of  it. 

"  For  the  land  sakes !  Are  you  be 
witched  ?  Where  have  you  been,  and 
what  has  happened  ?  " 

Billy  explained  that  the  bottle  of  liquid 
air  had  been  broken ;  but  she  was  as 
much  in  the  dark  as  before,  for  she  had 
never  even  heard  of  such  a  thing  as  liquid 
air.  Still  she  knew  what  to  do  in  cases  of 
frost-bite,  and  she  soon  had  the  boys' 
hands  in  basins  of  cold  water  and  had 
heated  milk  for  them  to  drink. 

Then  she  went  to  the  door  to  see  what 
had  happened.     The  pump  was  thick  with 
ice,  and  long  icicles  hung  from  its  lips. 
126 


IMITATION          LIQUID          AIR 

The  hired  man  stepped  up  to  it  at  that 
minute,  and  the  next  moment  he  was 
coasting  on  his  trousers  down  the  lane, 
and  when  he  picked  himself  up  he  began 
to  rub  his  ears  and  put  for  the  house  as 
fast  as  he  could. 

In  violent  contrast  to  this,  she  could  see 
people  on  the  piazza  of  the  boarding-house 
fanning  themselves  vigorously,  while  in  the 
hen-yard  of  the  Leonards  the  hens  were 
walking  about  with  open  beaks — a  sure 
sign  of  unusual  heat. 

While  she  stood  gazing,  there  came  a 
sound  of  an  amazed  voice  from  the  cow 
lane,  and  then  Billy's  father,  his  black 
beard  coated  with  frost,  ran  in  out  of  the 
hail,  followed  by  Snip,  the  collie,  covered 
from  head  to  foot  with  ice. 

"  This  beats  all/'  said  Mr.  Mason,  slap 
ping  his  hands.  "  A  blizzard  in  August. 
Where's  my  Pontiac  mittens  ?  " 

It  was  a  full  hour  before  the  liquid  air 
127 


TARKUS  AND  THE 

ceased  to  act,  and  by  that  time  the  fields  in 
the  vicinity  of  the  place  where  the  bottle 
had  broken  were  covered  with  a  foot  of  hail. 

It  didn't  take  the  boys  long  to  recover 
from  their  chill,  and  then  they  put  on 
warm  clothes  and  went  out  and  had  an 
ice-ball  fight.  And  they  yelled  to  some 
of  the  city  children  to  come  out  and  play 
with  them  ;  but  the  city  children  shook 
their  heads,  and  said  mamma  wouldn't  let 
them.  And  they  probably  would  have 
frozen  to  death. 

Of  course  all  the  boarders  were  inter 
ested,  and  several  got  their  toes  and  ears 
frosted;  and  before  the  ice  was  melted 
people  began  to  come  from  all  over  the 
county,  for  the  news  had  been  telephoned 
everywhere,  and  toward  night  a  reporter 
came  out  from  the  city,  and  Tarkus  was 
pointed  out  to  him  as  the  one  who  had 
caused  the  disturbance.  Trees  coated 
with  ice  in  August  are  an  unwonted 
128 


IMITATION          LIQUID          AIR 

sight,  and  many  a  snap  shot-was  taken  of 
it  all.  Tarkus  found  that  the  reporter 
was  a  chummy  sort  of  fellow,  and  they 
became  friends  at  once. 

"  I'm  sorry  I  didn't  have  a  gallon  of  the 
stuff,  for  I  could  have  frosted  the  whole 
State  just  as  easy  and  given  you  lots  of 
pleasant  work  writing  it  up.  It's  a  peachy 
sight,  isn't  it  ?  "  said  the  boy. 

"Yes,"  said  the  reporter;  "but  the 
joke  of  it  is  that  it  was  imitation  liquid  air." 

"  Well,  I  had  just  as  much  fun  as  if  it 
was  real.  There  wasn't  any  imitation 
about  the  cold,  anyhow." 

And  there  wasn't  any  imitation  about 
the  sum  that  Mr.  Greenwich  had  to  pay 
for  several  barrels  of  frozen  apples  and 
corn  and  beans,  and  he  now  feels  that 
there  are  some  things  that  he  ought  to  re 
fuse  the  boy  hereafter.  And  liquid  air, 
imitation  or  otherwise,  heads  the  list  that 
he  has  made  out. 

129 


AMINADAB    SKELCH  AND 
HIS  FREE   LIBRARY 


AMINADAB  SKELCH  had  a  de 
fective    moral     sense,    but    you 
must  not  blame  him  for  it   too 
harshly.     What  could  any  one  expect  of 
a  boy  who,  having   such   a  dreadful  name 
as  Skelch,  had  been  saddled  with  Amina- 
dab  when   he  was   too   young  to  protest. 
Of  course    the   boys    called  him  Dab  or 
Dabby  for  short,  or  else  Amen,  which  was 
just  as  bad,  and  he  is  certainly  entitled  to 
some  consideration  on  that    account.     If 
133 


AMINADAB  SKELCH 

he  had  been  called  Gaudensius  Stewart  or 
Alcibiades  Montrose,  he  might  have  been 
a  very  noble  little  fellow ;  but  the  name  of 
Aminadab  prepared  people  for  the  worst. 
And  yet  he  was  not  the  worst  by  any 
means.  He  had  a  love  for  the  beautiful, 
and  he  liked  to  do  little  kindnesses  for 
people,  and  he  was  generous  to  a  fault. 
His  chief  failing  was  that  he  did  not 
know  the  difference  between  mine  and 
thine,  and  it  was  this  that  led  him 
into  the  trouble  that  I  am  about  to 
describe. 

One  day  he  went  to  Philadelphia,  and 
while  he  was  there  he  saw  many  fine  build 
ings.  Now  the  little  town  where  he  lived, 
up  among  the  mountains  near  Plainfield, 
New  Jersey,  did  not  boast  of  a  building 
more  pretentious  than  a  wooden  house, 
and  so  these  great  stone  buildings  seemed 
to  him  like  fairy  palaces,  and  he  deter 
mined,  when  he  returned  to  Mullinsville, 
134 


AND  HIS  FREE  LIBRARY 

to  build  a  handsome  library  and  present  it 
to  his  fellow  townsmen. 

It  is  proper  at  this  point  to  say  that 
while  Aminadab  did  not  boast  any  ac 
quaintance  with  the  fairies,  he  did  have 
a  strength  that  was  little  short  of  super 
natural.  He  was  so  strong  that  he  could 
pull  young  saplings  from  the  earth  with 
one  hand  and  could  raise  a  six-hundred- 
pound  bag  of  meal  as  easily  as  you  could 
handle  a  five-pound  bag  of  salt.  Beside 
this  he  was  remarkably  handy.  He  was 
own  cousin  on  his  mother's  side  to  the  boy 
who  made  a  trolley  car  with  a  jack-knife 
as  his  only  tool. 

Now,  if  Aminadab  had  possessed  a  good 
moral  sense,  he  would  have  gone  to  the 
proprietor  of  some  stone-yard  and  would 
have  said,  "  I  want  enough  stone  to  build 
a  very  handsome  library.  I  have  not  the 
money  to  pay  for  it  to-day,  and  I  may 
never  have  it,  but  if  you  will  trust  me,  and 
'35 


AMINADAB  SKELCH 

my  health  does  not  give  out,  I  will  pay 
you  before  I  die."  Most  any  stone-seller 
would  have  given  him  at  least  enough  for 
a  basement.  Then  he  would  have  said 
practically  the  same  thing  at  the  pane-of- 
glass  factory  and  the  store  where  they  sell 
planks  of  wood  and  the  nail  bazar  and  the 
paint  depot.  But  he  did  none  of  these 
things.  He  said  to  himself:  "  Here,  I 
am  going  to  give  my  fellow  townsmen  a 
fine  library.  I  am  going  to  make  it  all 
myself,  and  I  don't  see  why  I  can't  help 
myself  to  material  wherever  I  can  find  it." 

Now,  as  you  and  I  know,  this  was  very 
wrong;  but  I'm  not  telling  you  what 
ought  to  have  happened,  only  what  did 
happen  to  a  little  New  Jersey  boy  who 
didn't  know  any  better. 

First  he  selected  r.  plot  of  ground  on 

which    to    build    the    library.     This    was 

next  door  to  the  summer  residence  of  a 

man  who  had  gone  to  New  York  for  the 

136 


AND  HIS  FREE  LIBRARY 

winter,  and  it  was  part  of  his  land.  When 
people  saw  Aminadab  digging  for  the 
foundations,  they  did  not  stop  him,  for  it 
was  none  of  their  business,  and  besides, 
for  all  they  knew,  he  had  received  permis 
sion  from  Mr.  Hamerton,  the  owner. 
As  I  neglected  to  say,  Aminadab  was  an 
orphan  and  not  answerable  to  anyone. 

Of  course,  to  such  a  strong  and  handy 
boy  the  work  of  digging  a  cellar  thirty  by 
fifty  feet  was  not  a  thing  to  keep  him  busy 
long,  and  by  nightfall  of  the  day  he  started 
it,  it  was  all  ready  for  the  mason  work. 

It  would  not  be  very  interesting  to  tell 
you  how  he  mixed  his  mortar  and  did  all 
the  other  prosy  things  that  go  to  the 
making  of  a  house.  The  remarkable 
thing  is  that  he  got  every  stone  that  went 
into  the  building  of  that  library  from  the 
stone  walls  of  the  adjacent  country.  "  A 
stone  here  and  a  stone  there  will  never  be 
missed,"  said  he,  and  he  was  right.  But, 
i37 


AMINADAB  SKELCH 

although  they  weren't  missed,  it  was  wrong 
in  him  to  take  them  without  asking.  I'm 
not  standing  up  for  Dabby  by  any 
means. 

There  was  a  very  thick  evergreen  hedge 
running  along  the  front  of  the  Hamerton 
place,  and  no  one  noticed  what  was  going 
on  behind  it,  so  Dabby  was  able  to  give 
his  whole  strength  to  his  task  without  in 
terruption.  And  it  took  a  great  deal  of 
strength,  and  the  boy  ate  his  meals  with  a 
workman's  appetite.  It  was  no  slight 
task  to  carry  two  or  three  fifty-pound 
stones  a  mile  or  two,  and  set  them  up 
in  place ;  but  he  was  a  cheerful  worker,  and 
he  knew  that  he  was  building  a  memorial 
to  himself,  and  that  made  the  task  an  easy 
one. 

An  armful  of  planks  from  a  planing-mill 
here  and  there,  taken  at  the  noon  hour, 
when  the  men  were  off  eating  their  lunch 
eon,  and  a  few  kegs  of  nails,  which  he 
138 


AND  HIS  FREE  LIBRARY 

shouldered  two  at  a  time,  and  some 
quick,  deft  work,  and  the  floors  were  laid. 
And  he  had  only  been  at  work  two  or 
three  days.  I  think  he  must  have  had  a 
strong  natural  taste  in  architecture,  for 
when  the  building  was  completed,  several 
New  York  architects  said  that  it  was 
worthy  of  Richardson  at  his  best.  You 
ought  to  know,  if  you  don't,  that  Richard 
son  was  one  of  the  greatest  of  American 
architects,  and  it  is  a  pity  that  he  is  not 
living  to-day. 

The  panes  of  glass  were  harder  to  get, 
and  I  think  that  the  way  in  which  Amin- 
adab  got  them  was  thoroughly  reprehen 
sible,  for  instead  of  buying  them  or  even 
taking  them  without  leave  from  a  glazier, 
he  stole  a  glazier's  diamond  and  cut  the 
panes  out  of  the  various  houses  in  town 
thus  letting  in  the  cold  air  and  putting 
people  to  a  lot  of  trouble.  You  may  say 
that  in  the  end  it  gave  the  glazier  plenty 
139 


AMINADAB  SKELCH 

of  work  that  he  would  not  otherwise  have 
had;  but  I  tell  you  that  a  right  that  comes 
from  a  wrong  is  not  the  right  kind  of 
right. 

At  noon  of  the  fourth  day  the  boy  had 
finished  everything  but  the  front  doors, 
and  he  was  puzzled  where  to  get  them. 
He  wanted  something  handsome,  but  he 
didn't  think  that  he  was  able  to  make 
doors  with  the  few  tools  at  his  command, 
and  he  knew  of  no  ready-made  doors  that 
would  do.  So  he  took  a  day  off  and 
went  to  Philadelphia,  and  there,  on  Mar 
ket  Street,  or  Chestnut,  or  Arch — I  can't 
be  more  exact,  because  those  are  the  only 
Philadelphia  streets  that  I  know — he  saw 
two  mahogany  doors,  most  beautifully 
carved  and  evidently  very  valuable. 

Oh,  why  did  not  Aminadab  ask  per 
mission  to  carry  those  doors  away  with 
him  ?  The  owner,  who  was  a  rich  man, 
might  have  granted  his  request,  if  the  lad 


AND  HIS  FREE  LIBRARY 

had  been  courteous.  But  poor  little 
Aminadab,  the  boy  with  the  perverted 
moral  sense,  went  up  the  steps,  and  tak 
ing  a  screw-driver  from  his  pocket,  began 
to  unscrew  the  hinges. 

In  fewer  minutes  than  you  can  count,  a 
policeman  passed  by,  and  when  he  saw  the 
boy,  he  asked  him  what  he  was  doing. 
Aminadab  had  taken  one  door  off  and 
leaned  it  up  against  the  house,  and  a 
flood  of  keen  autumn  air  swept  into  the 
rich  hall. 

Now,  whatever  else  Dabby  may  have 
been,  he  was  at  least  truthful,  and  he  said, 
without  hesitating: 

"  I  am  going  to  take  these  doors  to 
Mullinsville,  to  put  them  in  my  new  free 
library  there.  They  are  just  the  right  size, 
and  I  can't  make  any  nearly  as  good." 

"  But,  my  son,"  said  the  policeman, 
who  had  children  of  his  own  and  knew 
how  to  speak  to  boys,  "  don't  you  know 
141 


AMINADAB  SKELCH 

that  it  is  dishonest  to  take  a  man's  doors 
away  without  his  permission  ?  Suppose 
Mr.  Strawcott,  or  Lippinbridge,  or  what 
ever  the  name  of  the  gentleman  is  who 
lives  here,  should  get  pneumonia  through 
the  loss  of  his  doors,  it  would  be  your 
fault." 

Aminadab  had  not  thought  of  that  at 
all.  To  give  a  man  pneumonia  was  the 
last  thing  he  would  have  wished  to  do, 
and  his  eyes  began  to  fill  with  tears. 
While  he  was  trying  hard  to  keep  back 
the  sobs,  a  large,  stout,  kindly-looking 
old  gentleman  came  down  the  broad  stair 
case,  and  seeing  one  of  his  doors  off  its 
hinges  and  a  policeman  on  the  steps, 
said : 

"  Hello,  what's  the  matter  here  ?  Is 
this  the  way  you  come  in  doors — by  tak 
ing  the  doors  off? " 

Then  Aminadab  did  what  he  ought  to 
have  done  in  the  first  place.     He  took  off 
142 


AND  HIS  FREE  LIBRARY 

his  hat,  and  he  made  a  low  bow,  and  said, 
in  a  manly  tone  : 

"  I  am  building  a  library  at  Mullins- 
ville,  New  Jersey,  which  I  am  going  to 
give  to  the  town,  and  I  needed  a  pair  of 
doors  for  it,  and,  seeing  that  you  must  be 
rich,  or  else  you  wouldn't  have  mahogany 
doors  when  black  walnut  would  do  just  as 
well,  I  helped  myself  to  them,  and  didn't 
suppose  that  you'd  miss  them." 

"  Didn't  suppose  that  I'd  miss  them  ? 
Hoity,  toity!  am  I  so  old  that  I  can't  see 
when  my  front  doors  are  gone?  How 
ever,  I  am  glad  to  see  that  you  are  so 
public-spirited,  and  if  you  and  the  officer 
will  come  inside  out  of  the  draught,  I'd 
like  to  talk  to  you." 

Aminadab  motioned  to  the  officer  to  go 
in,  and  then  he  placed  the  door  in  posi 
tion,  and  put  back  the  screws.  Then  he 
came  inside,  and  sat  down  in  the  old  gen 
tleman's  drawing-room. 
143 


AMINADA3  SKELCH 

"  Now,  see  here,  young  man,  where  did 
you  get  the  rest  of  the  material  for  your 
library  ?  " 

"  I  got  the  stone  from  the  stone  walls 
around  the  country." 

"  And  did  you  have  permission  ?  " 

"  Why,  no,"  said  Aminadab,  wonder- 
ingly.  "  What's  a  stone  out  of  a  wall 
here  and  there  ?  " 

The  policeman  looked  at  Mr.  Lippin- 
bridge,  or  Mr.  Strawcott,  or  whatever  his 
name  was,  and  shook  his  head  sadly.  To 
him  the  boy  seemed  pretty  bad,  and  if  he 
had  had  his  say  he  would  nave  carried  him 
off  to  the  police  station. 

But  the  old  gentleman  smiled  kindly. 
u  And  who  helped  you  take  all  this  stone  ? 
Didn't  your  helpers  tell  you  that  it  is 
wrong  to  steal  ?  " 

"  I  had  no  help,  sir,"  said  Aminadab. 
"  I  did  it  all  myself." 

"  Well,  you  must  be  unusually  strong. 
144 


AND  HIS  FREE  LIBRARY 

And  how  were  you  going  to  carry  my 
doors  back  to  Mullinsville  ? " 

"  On  my  back,"  said  Aminadab,  simply. 

"  A  young  Samson,"  said  the  old  gen 
tleman,  looking  over  the  tops  of  his  glasses 
at  the  policeman,  who  nodded  affably. 

"  And  the  glass  and  timber,  where  did 
you  get  those  ?  " 

Aminadab  told  him.  Somehow  he  was 
not  afraid  in  the  presence  of  this  fine, 
patriarchal  old  man.  He  had  heard  of 
jails,  but  he  did  not  believe  that  the  gen 
tleman  was  going  to  punish  him. 

Mr.  Strawcott — if  that  was  his  name 
— heard  him  through,  and  then  he  said : 
"  Officer,  I  don't  think  that  this  is  a  case 
for  you.  He  has  put  back  my  door,  and 
I  will  deal  with  him  in  a  way  that  seems 
fit." 

The  officer  rose  and  bowed,  and  went 
out. 

When  Aminadab  and  the  old  man  were 

H5 


AMINADAB  SKELCH 

alone  together,  the  latter  said  :  "  My  boy, 
a  little  fellow  who  has  so  much  strength 
of  body  and  such  kindly  instincts  ought 
to  learn  that  it  is  never  kind  to  take  things 
that  don't  belong  to  him.  Now,  I  believe 
that  you  acted  thoughtlessly,  and  I  am 
not  going  to  punish  you,  although  you 
committed  a  crime  in  taking  down  my 
door.  Instead  I  am  going  to  make  you 
a  present  of  the  doors,  and  will  have  them 
sent  out  to  Mullinsville;  and  I  will  also 
give  you  ten  thousand  books  to  put  on 
the  shelves,  for  a  library  without  books  is 
like  cake  without  sugar.  Only  first  you 
must  go  to  each  man  from  whom  you — er 
—borrowed  material,  and  tell  him  what 
you  have  done,  and  restore  his  property, 
if  he  objects.  And  I  will  make  good  any 
stone  or  glass  or  timber  that  is  needed." 

Aminadab  seized  the  good  man's  hand 
and  wrung  it,  and  a  few  minutes  later  he 
was  on   his  way  home,  and  before  night- 
146 


AND  HIS  FREE  LIBRARY 

fall  he  had  visited  every  man  who  had  un 
knowingly  contributed  to  the  new  library. 
And  to  the  glory  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Mullinsville,  only  one  man  refused  to  let 
Aminadab  keep  what  he  had  taken,  and 
that  one  was  an  old  fellow  who  had  miles 
on  miles  of  stone  fences  and  from  whom 
the  boy  had  taken  only  one  stone.  He  in 
sisted  on  its  being  returned  to  him,  and  as 
it  was  the  bottom  stone  in  the  foundation 
wall,  Dabby  had  a  hard  time  getting  it, 
and  plenty  of  time  to  reflect  on  his  mis 
doings.  It  is  a  singular  fact  that,  after  the 
library  was  dedicated,  there  was  no  one 
who  spent  so  much  time  in  it  as  this  old 
man  who  had  refused  to  contribute  a 
single  stone  towards  its  erection. 

The  day  of  the  dedication  was  made  a 
holiday  in  Mullinsville,  and  every  one  in 
town  came  to  see  what  one  small  boy  had 
been  able  to  do;  and  old  Mr.  Strawcott, 
or  Lippinbridge,  told  them  all  that  they 
147 


AMINADAB  SKELCH 

ought  to  be  proud  of  Aminadab,  on  the 
whole,  because  while  dishonesty  was  a 
grievous  quality,  still  it  could  be  repented 
of  and  doubtless  Aminadab  had  already 
repented,  but  public  spirit  was  a  thing  so 
rare  that  it  ought  to  be  encouraged  by  all 
possible  means. 

Then  Aminadab  got  up  and  said  :  u  I 
thought  that  I  was  going  to  give  you  this 
library  myself;  but  since  my  kind  friend 
here  has  opened  my  eyes,  I  see  that  I  had 
only  two  things  to  give  you,  my  labor 
and  what  taste  I  may  possess.  The  rest 
you  have  given  yourselves,  and  the  books 
he  has  given.  So  I  say  let's  give  three 
cheers  for  him." 

The  cheers  were  given  lustily,  and  then, 
much  to  Aminadab's  surprise,  Mr.  Ham- 
erton,  who  had  come  in  late  and  unex 
pectedly,  rose  and  said :  "  Dabby  has  for 
gotten  that  I  own  the  ground  on  which  he 
built  the  library,  but  I  cheerfully  give  it 
148 


AND  HIS  FREE  LIBRARY 

to  him  to  give  to  you,  because  I  think 
that  he  is  the  most  generous  and  the  most 
public-spirited  boy  in  New  Jersey,  and 
after  this  we  will  trust  him  with  anything." 
And  Dabby  has  proved  faithful  to  that 
trust. 


OLIVER'S    THREE    GIFTS 


IT  was   on  a  bright  morning  early  in 
June,  that  Oliver  Westinghouse  left 
his  home  in  Thomaston,  Connecti 
cut,  to  seek  his  fortune.     His  mother,  poor 
woman,  had  nothing  to  give  him  but  her 
blessing  and  three  nickels  for  pocket-pieces. 
"  Go,  my  son,"  she  said,  "  and  remem 
ber  that,  although   kind  words  butter  no 
parsnips,  they  make  your  going  easier." 

Oliver  thanked  her  and  kissed  her,  and 
set  forth.     He  paused  at  the  front  gate  to 
153 


OLIVER       S         THREE         GIFTS 

say  :  "  If  I  am  not  back  by  Saturday  with 
a  fortune,  it  will  be  because  all  the  fairies 
are  dead." 

His  mother,  who  was  blessed  with  a 
sense  of  humor,  said  in  return  :  "  Then 
I'll  prepare  dinner  for  but  one  next  Sun 
day,"  and  with  a  tearful  smile  she  waved 
him  a  good-bye. 

This  was  on  Monday  morning,  and  the 
boy  journeyed  along  with  a  light  heart, 
jingling  the  three  nickels  in  his  pocket. 
He  had  not  gone  far  before  he  came  upon 
a  poor  scissors-grinder  who  was  walking 
along  under  the  burden  of  a  heavy  grind 
stone.  Oliver  walked  alongside  of  him 
and  said,  "  Good  morning,  sir.  We  need 


rain." 


"Don't  say  that,"  said  the  grinder. 
"  The  going's  bad  enough  as  it  is.  It's  a 
weary  walk  to  Waterbury,  and  I'm  half 
sick  of  it." 

"  What's  the  matter  with  my  carrying 
154 


OLIVER        S          THREE          GIFTS 

your  grindstone  for  a  mile  or  two  ?  I'm 
strong  and  hearty,  and  I'm  on  my  way  to 
make  my  fortune  before  Saturday  night." 

"  You'll  need  to  work  fast  to  get  it  made 
on  time,  my  good  friend,"  said  the  man. 
"  I've  been  tinkering  at  mine  ever  since  I 
was  your  age,  and  that's  forty  years,  and 
it's  not  nearly  made  yet." 

"  Perhaps  you  were  never  sure  of  mak 
ing  it  as  I  am,"  said  Oliver. 

"  Well,  there's  something  in  that,"  said 
the  old  man.  "  I  was  never  sure  of  doing 
well,  and  I  never  have.  Enough  to  eat 
and  a  place  to  sleep  and  weary  miles  to 
walk  and  the  everlasting  whirr  of  the 
grindstone,  with  my  nose  pretty  close  to  it, 
and  there  you  have  my  history  for  the  last 
forty  years." 

They  had  now  come  to  a  farmhouse, 
and  a  woman  ran  out  and  asked  the  man 
to  sharpen  her  scissors.  He  thanked  Oli 
ver  for  relieving  him  of  his  burden,  and 


THREE         GIFTS 

as  the  boy  slung  the  grindstone  off  his 
shoulders,  the  old  man  fumbled  in  his 
pocket  and  at  last  brought  out  a  key, 
which  he  handed  to  the  lad.  "  Take  this, 
my  boy.  It  will  open  any  lock  if  used 
honestly." 

"  Thanks,"  said  Oliver,  "  but  you  must 
let  me  pay  for  it."  The  old  man  smiled, 
and  Oliver  handed  him  one  of  the  nickels, 
and  then  bade  him  a  cheerful  good-day 
and  skipped  gayly  along  the  road  to 
Waterbury. 

He  listened  to  the  bobolink's  tankling 
notes,  and  they  seemed  to  say,  "You'll 
surely  succeed." 

"  I  believe  you,"  said  Oliver,  and  ran 
along  as  briskly  as  if  he  had  just  been  let 
out  of  school. 

He  had  made  some  two  miles  when  he 

came  across  a  peddler  whose  cart  was  stuck 

in  a  mudhole.      His  poor  horse  had  not 

strength   to  pull  the  wheels  clear  of  the 

156 


OLIVER'S       THREE       GIFTS 

mud,  and  the  peddler  was  trying  to  coax 
the  animal. 

"  Good  morning.  Don't  you  believe  in 
the  whip  ?  "  said  Oliver. 

"  No,  my  horse  will  do  his  best  for  love 
of  me.  He'll  do  no  more  through  fear  of 
me." 

"  That's  very  pretty,  and  I  like  you  for 
it,"  said  Oliver.  "  But  put  your  shoulder 
to  the  wheel  is  worth  a  dozen  kind  words. 
Come,  you  take  one  side,  and  I'll  take  the 
other,  and  we'll  put  new  heart  into  the 
horse." 

It  was  even  as  he  had  said.  His  strong 
young  shoulder  and  that  of  the  peddler 
made  it  an  easy  matter  for  the  horse  to 
pull  the  wagon  out  of  the  mudhole ;  and 
then,  the  way  being  down  hill,  the  peddler 
climbed  into  the  wagon  and  invited  Oliver 
to  do  the  same,  and  the  horse  ambled 
along  at  a  decent  gait  on  the  road  to 
Waterbury. 

"57 


OLIVER'S       THREE       GIFTS 

"  What  brings  you  a-tramping  ?  "  said 
the  peddler. 

"  Oh,  I'm  going  to  seek  my  fortune, 
and  I  must  find  it  by  Saturday/' 

"  And  you  have  but  six  days  ?  Why, 
my  boy,  I've  been  searching  for  that  very 
thing  all  my  life,  and  I  haven't  a  clue  to  it 
yet." 

"  You  lacked  faith  then.  I'll  go  home 
with  a  fortune  Saturday  night,  and  don't 
you  forget  it." 

"  Well,  I'll  say  this  much.  You  seem 
willing  to  stop  in  your  hunt  long  enough 
to  help  others,  and  so  I'm  going  to  give 
you  a  little  present.  It  may  not  be 
of  any  use  to  you,  but  it  may  come  in 
handy  to  guard  against  savage  dogs  on 
the  road.  It's  a  bit  of  a  root  that  my 
father  dug  out  of  the  Black  Forest,  and 
it  will  make  the  wildest  animal  friendly 
to  you.  It  has  something  of  the  nature  of 
catnip." 

158 


OLIVER        S         THREE         GIFTS 

The  peddler  broke  off  a  piece  from  a 
black  root  that  he  took  out  of  his  pocket, 
and  gave  it  to  Oliver. 

"  Thanks,  but  you  must  let  me  pay  for 
it,"  said  Oliver.  He  handed  the  man  a 
nickel,  and  the  peddler  accepted  it  with  a 
smile.  He  had  long  ago  learned  that 
money  honestly  come  by  should  never  be 
spurned. 

A  few  miles  further  on  and  the  peddler 
turned  away  from  the  road  to  Waterbury, 
so  Oliver  pursued  his  journey  alone.  His 
ride  had  made  him  glad  of  a  little  more  leg 
exercise,  and  he  ran  along  whistling  in  a 
way  to  make  the  robins  envious. 

About  three  miles  out  of  Waterbury  he 
overtook  a  charcoal-burner  on  his  way  to 
town  with  a  load  of  charcoal.  The  fellow 
had  cut  his  thumb  while  whittling  a  switch, 
and  it  was  bleeding  profusely  when  Oliver 
came  up.  "  What's  the  matter — cut  your 
thumb  ?  "  said  Oliver,  sympathetically. 
'59 


OLIVER        S          THREE          GIFTS 

"  I  have,  and  it's  a  nasty  cut.  Haven't 
any  court  plaster  in  your  shoes,  have 
you  ?  "  said  the  man  to  the  barefoot  boy. 

Oliver  laughed.  "  No,"  he  said,  "  but 
my  mother  says  that  this  is  just  as  good," 
and  with  that  he  stepped  to  a  stone  wall 
and  picked  two  or  three  cobwebs  with  the 
morning  dew  still  upon  them.  "  Wrap 
your  thumb  up  in  those,  and  it  will  soon 
heal." 

The  charcoal-burner  followed  Oliver's 
advice,and  the  flow  of  blood  was  staunched. 

"  Well,  woodsman  that  I  am,  I  never 
heard  of  that  before,"  said  he.  "  Where 
are  you  going,  to  Waterbury  ?  " 

Oliver  nodded,  and  the  man  invited 
him  to  get  into  the  wagon,  and  the  two 
rolled  speedily  along  toward  Waterbury. 

"  What  brings  you  this  way  ?  "  asked 
the  charcoal-burner. 

"  Going  to  build  up  a  fortune  by  Satur 
day  night,"  said  Oliver. 
1 60 


OLIVER        S         THREE         GIFTS 

"You  must  be  a  master  builder,  then," 
said  the  man.  "  I've  tried  to  do  a  little 
work  in  that  line  ever  since  I  was  a  kid, 
but  this  doesn't  look  as  if  I'd  got  much 
beyond  the  laying  of  the  corner-stone." 

"You  don't  believe  in  yourself  enough," 
said  Oliver. 

"  Well,  that  may  be  so,  and  I'm  sure  I 
wish  you  luck.  You  seem  to  have  time 
to  help  others,  and  that  will  make  them 
willing  to  give  you  a  boost.  You  did  me 
a  good  turn,  and  I'm  going  to  let  you 
have  something  to  remember  my  thumb 
by."  He  tugged  away  at  a  greasy  old 
wallet,  and  drew  forth  a  circus  ticket. 
"  This  was  given  to  me  this  morning  by  a 
feller  that  used  to  be  in  the  charcoal  busi 
ness  with  me,  but  now  he's  in  the  circus 
that's  exhibiting  in  Waterbury.  I'd  like 
to  see  it  well  enough,  but  I'm  pretty  busy, 
and  you  bein'  a  kid'll  like  it  better'n  I  do, 
so  you're  welcome  to  it." 
161 


OLIVER        S          THREE          GIFTS 

Oliver's  eyes  sparkled.  "  You're  a 
brick,"  he  said.  "  But  you  must  let  me 
pay  for  it,"  and  with  that  he  gave  him  the 
last  nickel. 

The  man  smiled,  but  he  understood  the 
lad's  independence,  and  accepted  the  coin; 
and  having  reached  the  outskirts  of  the 
city,  he  turned  east,  after  setting  Oliver 
down  at  the  entrance  to  the  circus.  The 
tents  lay  white  and  dazzling  in  the  morn 
ing  sun,  and  Oliver  felt  that  his  fortune 
lay  within  them. 

It  were  inexpedient  to  tell  of  all  the  de 
lights  that  fell  to  the  boy.  Penniless 
though  he  was,  he  was  as  happy  as  a  king 
—would  like  to  be;  and  he  roamed 
around,  looking  at  the  wild  beasts,  fond 
ling  the  elephant's  trunk,  and  wishing  that 
his  mother  were  along  to  share  his  fun. 

When  he  came  to  the  lion's  cage  he 
noticed  a  great  crowd  around  it,  and  the 
lion  was  growling  and  roaring  in  a  manner 
162 


OLIVER        S         THREE          GIFTS 

to  scare  the  stoutest  hearts.  Oliver  pushed 
his  way  through  the  crowd,  and  found  that 
the  keeper  of  the  lion  had  become  angry 
over  some  slight  from  the  owner  of  the 
show,  and  had  left  town  that  morning, 
taking  with  him  the  key  of  the  cage.  He 
had  also  given  the  lion  something  that  had 
aroused  all  his  savage  instincts.  The  beast 
leaped  from  end  to  end  of  his  cage,  roar 
ing  in  a  blood-curdling  way  and  trying  to 
break  his  bars. 

"  I'd  give  a  thousand  dollars  if  I  could 
get  a  lion-tamer  this  minute  !  " 

The  trouble  with  a  great  many  persons 
who  are  looking  for  success  is  that  they 
don't  recognize  it  when  they  meet  it,  but 
Oliver  was  not  that  kind  of  person.  That 
is  why  he  immediately  said  to  the  pro 
prietor  : 

"  I'll  go  in  and  tame  your  old  lion  if 
you'll  pay  me  a  good  round  sum  when  I 
get  inside  the  cage." 

163 


OLIVER'S      THREE       GIFTS 

The  man  smiled  in  very  much  the  same 
way  that  Goliath  did  when  David  stepped 
up  to  him,  but  he  said : 

"  I'm  a  man  of  my  word.  Tame  that 
lion,  and  I'll  give  you  a  thousand  dollars 
and  a  plot  of  ground  in  Bridgeport  near 
the  winter  quarters  of  our  show." 

Oliver  shook  hands  with  the  man  ;  then 
he  took  out  of  his  pocket  the  old  key 
that  the  scissors-grinder  had  given  him 
and  opened  the  cage  door.  The  lion  gave 
a  mighty  bound,  and  would  have  leaped 
through  the  door,  but  Oliver  held  the 
piece  of  root  to  his  nose,  and  in  a  minute 
the  beast  was  lying  on  his  back,  with  his 
paws  in  the  air,  in  a  delirium  of  joy.  It 
was  some  kind  of  catnip — probably  lion- 
nip — for  the  king  of  beasts  let  Oliver 
caress  him  and  pat  him,  and  finally  sat 
down  in  the  corner  of  his  cage  with  the 
brave  boy  astride  of  his  back.  And  purr  ! 
You'd  have  thought  all  the  cats  in  New 
164 


OLIVER        S         THREE          GIFTS 

York  City  were  having  a  purring  conven 
tion. 

The  manager  was  better  than  his  word. 
He  gave  Oliver  $2,000  and  a  deed  for  a 
city  lot  in  Bridgeport,  and  invited  him 
home  to  dine  with  him. 

The  show  was  billed  to  stay  in  Water- 
bury  a  week,  and  during  that  time  Oliver 
gave  daily  performances  in  the  cage,  al 
ways  taking  care  to  keep  hold  of  the  root. 

Saturday  night,  after  the  show  was  over, 
Oliver  took  the  last  train  up  the  Nauga- 
tuck  Valley  to  Thomaston.  His  mother 
had  gone  to  bed,  but  she  rose  and  let  him 
in. 

"  Why,  my  boy  !  I  didn't  expect  you," 
said  she.  "  You'll  have  to  kill  a  chicken, 
for  I  wasn't  going  to  have  anything  but  a 
cup  of  tea  for  my  Sunday  dinner." 

"  You  should  have  had  as  much  confi 
dence  in  me  as  I  had  in  myself,  mother 
dear,"  said  Oliver.  Then  he  told  her  that 
165 


OLIVER        S          THREE          GIFTS 

he  had  been  engaged  at  a  princely  salary 
to  be  lion-tamer-in-extraordinary  to  the 
circus. 

When  he  showed  her  the  deed  and  the 
two  thousand  dollars,  "  For  the  land 
sakes  !  "  said  she,  and  fell  weeping  on  his 
neck. 


JIM    AND    THE    GOLD 
SPIRIT 


JIM     CORBIN'S     grandfather     had 
been   a   miser,  which    probably  ac 
counts   for    the  inordinate    love    of 
money  evinced  by  the  boy.     If  he  made 
ten  cents  picking  berries,  he  hid  it  away  in 
a  hole  beneath  a  loose  board  in  the  barn 
floor,  and  often  after  school  he  would  go 
out  to  the  barn  and  count  his  money. 

Jim   lived   with    his  father  in   a   dingy 
white  house  of  two  stones,  near  the  top  of 
Loudon  Hill.     His  mother  had  died  when 
169 


r 


JIM        AND        THE        GOLD         SPIRIT 

he  was  a  child  of  three,  to  the  great  grief 
of  his  father,  but  Jim  only  remembered 
her  as  a  sweet-voiced  woman  who  used  to 
caress  him  a  good  deal,  but  for  whom  he 
never  felt  the  love  that  he  always  had  for 
his  father.  Mr.  Corbin  was  a  man  who 
would  have  been  content  with  his  lot  if  he 
had  not  had  a  penny,  but  Jim  was  always 
wishing  that  he  was  rich,  and  he  was  in  a 
fair  way  of  becoming  so,  for  he  never  spent 
a  cent  if  he  could  help  it. 

Jim  was  fond  of  his  father,  although  he 
never  thought  much  about  it ;  but  he  was 
decidedly  fond  of  his  dog,  Snip,  a  black 
and  white  setter — or  at  least  it  had  setter 
blood  in  it.  When  Jim  went  to  register 
it  at  the  town  hall  and  was  asked  by  the 
clerk  what  kind  of  dog  it  was,  he  began  : 
"  Its  father  was  a  setter  and  its  mother  was 

a  collie "     "  Oh,   mongrel,"  said   the 

clerk,  to  Jim's  lasting  disgust.     His   dog 

was  no  mongrel,  if  it  did  have  mixed  blood, 

170 


JIM        AND        THE         GOLD         SPIRIT 

and  he  thought  as  much  of  the  handsome 
animal  as  he  could  well  think  of  anything 
not  connected  with  money. 

One  evening  after  the  chores  were  done 
he  lighted  a  lantern,  and  calling  Snip,  went 
out  to  the  barn  to  count  his  money.  He 
found  that  he  had  $76.78. 

"  Not  so  bad  for  two  years'  savings," 
said  he  to  Snip.  "  Oh,  but  I  do  wish  that 
I  was  awfully  rich  and  had  lots  of  horses 
and  carriages  and  lived  in  a  castle  like 
Judge  Perrine's." 

As  he  spoke  he  was  startled  to  see  a 
little  man  in  black,  about  three  feet  in 
height,  emerge  from  under  the  loose  board 
and  take  up  his  stand  in  front  of  him. 
Snip  gave  a  low  growl  and  raised  his  ruff, 
but  he  did  not  desert  Jim. 

As  for  the  boy,  although  he  was  startled, 
he  did  not   show  it.     He   grabbed  all  his 
money,  and    replaced  it    in  the  stocking 
which  served  as  his  purse. 
171 


JIM        AND        THE        GOLD         SPIRIT 

The  little  man  stared  at  Jim  from  under 
his  bushy  eyebrows,  and  said,  in  a  voice 
that  sounded  like  the  clink  of  gold,  "  Well, 
what  do  you  want  of  me  ?  " 

"  I  don't  want  anything  of  you  that  I 
know  of.  I  suppose  you  are  a  fairy  ? " 

"  As  to  that,  I  don't  know  what  you 
mean,"  said  the  little  man;  "but  I  can  give 
you  riches — all  you  want,  if  you  do  as  I 
bid  you." 

"  And  what  must  I  do  ?  "  asked  Jim, 
rising  to  his  feet  and  eyeing  the  man  with 
suspicion. 

"  Well,  you  must  give  a  thousand  dol 
lars  to  the  poor  every  day,  or  your  riches 
will  vanish." 

"  And  how  much  do  I  get  every  day," 
asked  Jim.  He  did  not  wish  to  make 
any  foolish  promises. 

"  You'll  get  two  thousand  every  day, 
besides  a  handsome  house  and  barn." 

"  All  right,  I  promise,"  said  Jim,  "  al- 
172 


JIM        AND        THE        GOLD         SPIRIT 

though  I  think  it's  a  good  deal,  consider- 
ing." 

"  Very  well,  don't  forget.  The  second 
thing  is,  you  must  kill  your  dog." 

"  Kill  Snip  ?  I  guess  not,"  said  Jim, 
patting  the  dog  on  the  shoulders.  Snip 
looked  up  at  him  with  a  loving  glance  as 
much  as  to  say  :  "  You  couldn't  get  along 
without  me  no  matter  how  rich  you  were, 
could  you  ?  " 

"  Well,  it's  nothing  to  me,"  said  the 
little  man,  turning  to  go  as  he  had  come ; 
"  I  don't  care  whether  you  are  rich  or  not. 
Of  course,  I'd  like  your  dog,  but  he'll  be 
no  use  to  me  until  he's  dead;  so  if  you 
don't  kill  him,  you  get  no  wealth." 

Jim  was  trembling  all  over.  He  loved 
Snip.  But  he  loved  gold  even  more.  He 
lifted  his  hand  from  the  dog's  shoulder. 

"  Well,  what  is  it  ? "  said  the  little  man. 
"  The  dog  will  only  live  a  few  years  at 
best,  while  you  have  forty  or  fifty  years 

»73 


JIM        AND        THE        GOLD         SPIRIT 

before  you,  and  all  the  wealth  that  you 
can  wish  if  you  will  shorten  his  life." 

This  argument  decided  Jim. 

"How  must  I  ki— kill  him?"  he 
asked,  breaking  into  a  sweat. 

"  Shoot  him,"  said  the  little  man,  as  if 
he  was  talking  about  the  killing  of  a  par 
tridge. 

Jim  walked  silently  out  of  the  barn. 
The  dog  rose  to  go  too,  but  he  sent  him 
back.  In  a  few  minutes  he  came  back 
with  a  shot-gun.  He  was  a  capital  shot, 
but  it  is  one  thing  to  shoot  quail  or  ma 
rauding  crows,  and  it  is  quite  another 
thing  to  shoot  a  dog  who  has  been  as 
friendly  as  a  dog  can  be  for  three  or  four 
years  of  your  life. 

"  When  will  I  become  rich  ?  "  said  he. 

"  As  soon  as  the  dog  is  dead,"  said  the 
little  man. 

The  dog  had  curled  up  in  his  absence 
and  gone  to  sleep,  and  this  made  it  a  trifle 
174 


JIM        AND        THE        GOLD        SPIRIT 

easier  for  him  to  shoot  him.  If  the  dog 
had  risen  and  licked  his  hand,  or  lifted  it 
with  his  cold  muzzle,  Jim  would  have 
told  the  little  man  to  get  away  with  his 
temptation;  but  the  dog  slept  soundly, 
and  in  a  minute  he  had  passed  into  a 
dreamless  sleep. 

Scarcely  had  the  gun  ceased  echoing 
when  Jim  found  himself  in  a  splendid 
barn,  with  so  much  to  attract  his  attention 
that  he  did  not  think  of  the  dog.  There 
were  box-stalls  in  which  blooded  horses 
pawed  the  floor  impatiently,  great  hay 
lofts,  a  harness  room,  a  carriage  room,  and 
running  water,  and  two  grooms. 

The  old  man  had  disappeared,  and  Jim 
was  glad  of  it.  With  a  whoop  and  a 
bound  he  ran  to  the  house,  and  found  a 
marble  palace  even  finer  than  that  of 
Judge  Perrine.  He  bounded  up  the 
marble  steps  and  pressed  the  electric 
button,  and  a  servant  in  livery  opened 
'75 


JIM        AND         THE        GOLD        SPIRIT 

the  door.     "  Where's  my  father  P  "  asked 
Jim. 

"  In  the  library,"  answered  the  servant, 
bowing. 

As  Jim  passed  a  mirror  in  the  hall,  he 
saw  that  he  was  dressed  like  the  Hilton 
boys,  who  were  home  from  Yale  for  the 
holidays ;  he  had  always  felt  that  to  be 
arrayed  like  one  of  them  would  be  to  at 
tain  perfect  happiness.  As  it  was,  his  col 
lar  cut  his  neck  and  his  shoes  felt  tight. 
He  found  his  father  dressed  in  a  tight- 
fitting  frock-coat,  and  wearing  a  high  col 
lar  and  patent-leather  shoes,  and  looking 
as  uncomfortable  and  forlorn  as  if  he  had 
malaria. 

"  Isn't  it  great,  father  ?  "  said  Jim,  with 
enthusiasm. 

"  Is  this  your  doing,  son  ?  "  said  the  old 
man,  sadly.      "  I   suppose  it  is.     You've 
always  wished  we  were  rich,  and   I   sup 
pose  we  are  too  rich  to  ever  get  over  it ;. 
176 


JIM        AND        THE        GOLD         SPIRIT 

but,  if  I  could  slip  on  my  flannel  shirt  and 
go  around  in  my  socks,  I'd  give  all  this 
fancy  work  and  fixings  to  somebody  who 
had  been  brought  up  to  enjoy  it.  I 
always  thought  I  was  pretty  contented, 
but  I  can't  be  contented  with  this." 

Jim  sank  into  a  seat  opposite  his  father. 
It  was  soft  and  yielding,  and  he  bounced 
up  and  down  on  it  boylike  for  a  moment 
or  two  before  he  spoke. 

"  Yes,  sir,  I  did  it,  or  at  least  the  Spirit 
of  Gold  did.  We've  got  to  give  a  thou 
sand  dollars  a  day  to  the  poor,  or  we'll 
lose  all  our  money." 

"  I  lost  all  mine  before  I  was  born,  and 
yet  I've  always  been  happy.  Still,  it  will 
be  pleasant  to  help  the  poor.  How  did 
you  get  it  all  ?  By  fairy  connivance  P  " 

Just  then  a  dog  at  the  farm-house  next 
door    howled    dismally.     Jim's  face  fell, 
and   he   heaved  a  sigh    that   you  would 
hardly  expect  to  hear  from  one  so  rich. 
177 


JIM        AND        THE        GOLD        SPIRIT 

"  I  had  to  pay  a  big  price  for  it,  papa," 
said  he.  "  I  had  to  shoot  Snip." 

Mr.  Corbin  rose  from  his  seat.  "  You 
shot  your  dog — our  dog  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir.  The  man  said  he  wouldn't 
live  more  than  a  few  years,  anyway." 

"  None  of  us  will,  for  that  matter.  But, 
boy,  that  dog  was  your  friend.  He  trusted 
you.  He  went  to  sleep  with  his  head  on 
your  feet  night  after  night,  sure  that  you 
would  not  hurt  him,  and  he  guarded  our 
house  after  we  had  both  turned  in.  And 
you  reward  him  by  killing  him.  Oh,  our 
wealth  will  do  us  no  good.  Get  them  to 
give  us  back  our  old  home  and  dog  again. 
Til  never  be  happy  with  all  this  starch 
and  flummery,  and  no  dog  to  jump  on  me 
when  I  come  home." 

During  the  somewhat  lengthy  speech  of 
the  old  man  Jim's  face  had  been  getting 
more  and  more  crimson,  and  he  now  rose 
to  his  feet  and  said  : 

178 


JIM        AND       THE        GOLD         SPIRIT 

"  Father,  I  don't  know  what  possessed 
me  to  do  what  I  did.  I  don't  believe  I'll 
like  this  kind  of  life  one  bit.  I'm  afraid 
of  getting  a  spot  on  my  clothes,  the  car 
pets  seem  too  nice  to  walk  on,  there  isn't 
anything  cozy  about  it,  and  if  I  can  only 
get  Snip  back  again,  I'll  gladly  give  it  all 
up." 

He  left  the  library,  and  ran  out  of  doors 
and  through  the  spacious  courtyard  that 
had  been  the  old  muddy  barn-yard,  to  the 
barn.  He  found  the  place  where  he  had 
stood  when  he  shot  the  dog.  There  was 
a  blood  mark  on  the  floor,  but  the  dog's 
body  was  gone.  As  he  gazed  at  it,  his 
father  came  out  and  joined  him. 

"  Snippy,  Snippy,  come  back  to  me. 
I'll  give  up  all  I  have  to  get  you  back," 
said  Jim. 

Never  were  words  more  sincere,  and 
they  bore  instant  fruit.  Jim's  eyes  were 
unconsciously  fixed  upon  the  blood  spot, 
i79 


JIM        AND        THE        GOLD         SPIRIT 

and  as  he  looked  at  it,  it  grew  large  and 
black,  and  at  last  turned  into  the  sem 
blance  of  a  dog,  and  then  at  the  word 
"  Snip  "  from  Jim  it  became  his  old  dog. 

At  the  same  time  the  big,  palatial  mod 
ern  barn  was  changed  to  the  old  ram 
shackle  one  that  needed  shingling  so 
badly,  and  instead  of  ten  blooded  horses 
there  was  only  knee-sprung  Jessie. 

Snip  bounded  upon  Jim  and  rubbed  his 
honest  head  against  the  boy's  breast.  Old 
Mr.  Corbin  stroked  the  faithful  beast's 
silky  ears.  Then  son  and  father  together 
turned  their  heads  from  side  to  side  as  if 
to  ease  them  after  the  choking  linen  col 
lars,  and  Jim  said: 

"  Good  riddance  to  the  money,  papa. 
We  have  Snip  and  each  other,  and  what 
more  do  we  want  ?  " 


i    -O 


THE    CAKE    OF    CHARITY 


HARRY  ADAMS  was  in  the  habit 
of  taking  long  walks  by  himself 
in  order  to  become  acquainted 
with  his  native  city,  New  York.     Country 
boys    generally    know    all    the   points    of 
interest  for  miles  around  their  homes,  but 
city  children  often  grow  up  without  know 
ing    much  about  their   town  beyond   the 
few  blocks  that  lie  in  their  neighborhood. 
This  is  certainly  to  be  regretted  in  a  city 
like  New  York,  which  is  full  of  the  most 
183 


THE          CAKE          OF          CHARITY 

interesting  localities.  But  Harry  knew 
New  York  from  the  Battery  to  Harlem. 

One  day  he  was  out  walking  on  Fifth 
Avenue,  which,  as  you  all  know,  is  the 
most  famous  street  of  residences  in 
America.  There  are  few  shops  on  upper 
Fifth  Avenue,  and  so  when  Harry  passed 
a  bakery  at  the  corner  of  Sixty-fifth  Street, 
he  was  much  surprised  and  turned  back. 
He  had  passed  the  spot  hundreds  of  times 
before,  but  had  never  noticed  the  shop. 
He  happened  to  have  some  spending 
money  in  his  pocket,  and  he  went  in. 

"  What  sort  of  cake  have  you,  if  you 
please  ?  "  Harry  was  extremely  courteous. 
He  always  took  off  his  cap  when  he  met 
an  acquaintance  in  the  street,  and  he  often 
took  it  off  in  the  house  without  being 
asked  to  by  his  mother — and  if  you  have 
any  younger  brothers,  you  will  appreciate 
that  statement. 

There  was  a  very  tall,  thin,  young 
184 


THE          CAKE         OF          CHARITY 

woman  behind  the  counter.  She  had 
flaxen  hair  and  pink  cheeks  and  blue  eyes, 
and  Harry  thought  she  looked  like  a  doll 
come  to  life.  The  counter  was  heaped 
with  all  sorts  of  strange-looking  cakes  of 
pretty  shapes  and  colors,  and  all  of  them 
were  covered  with  frosting.  Cake  without 
frosting  is  much  worse  than  an  egg  with 
out  salt,  and  this  young  woman  knew  it. 

"  I  have  charity  cake,  malice  cake,  good 
nature  tarts,  and  so  forth." 

Harry  thought  the  names  very  amus 
ing,  and  he  bought  two  of  each  kind  of 
cake  mentioned. 

"  Are  they  wholesome  ?  "  said  he,  which 
was  a  funny  question  for  a  live  boy  to 
ask. 

"Very,"  answered  the  girl,  as  she 
wrapped  them  up  in  a  sheet  of  pink  paper 
with  a  beautiful  fairy  story  on  one  side  of 
it.  "  If  you're  stingy,  the  charity  cake  will 
make  you  generous.  If  you  are  cross,  the 
185 


THE          CAKE         OF          CHARITY 

good-nature  cake  will  make  you  pleasant ; 
but  the  malice  cake  is  not  good  for  chil 
dren,  and  if  you  like,  I'll  buy  it  back.  I'll 
give  you  five  cents  a  cake  for  it." 

As  Harry  had  paid  but  a  cent  apiece  for 
the  cakes,  he  was  only  too  glad  to  sell  the 
malice  cakes  at  a  profit  of  four  cents.  Boys 
sometimes  develop  the  trading  instinct  very 
early. 

After  he  had  sold  the  cakes,  he  bought 
five  more  malice  cakes  at  a  cent  apiece,  and 
then  she  bought  them  back  at  five  cents 
apiece,  so  that  he  received  a  quarter  for 
them. 

"  How  do  you  expect  to  make  any 
money  if  you  sell  your  cakes  at  so  much 
less  than  you  pay  for  them?" 

"  I  don't  wish  to  make  money  on  the 
malice  cakes." 

"  Then  why  do  you  bake  them  ?  " 

"  I  don't  bake  them.  My  baker  bakes 
them." 

186 


THE          CAKE         OF         CHARITY 

"  But  why  does  he  bake  them,  if  you 
don't  wish  to  sell  them  ?  " 

"  Because  he  hopes  I  will  sell  them." 

"  And  why  don't  you  sell  them  ? " 

"  Because  I  don't  think  they  ought  to 
be  eaten." 

Harry  was  just  going  to  ask  her  why 
she  baked  them  then  when  he  realized 
that  they  would  go  on  talking  all  day  long 
if  he  did  not  stop,  so  he  walked  out  of  the 
shop  with  his  cakes,  after  bowing  gra 
ciously  to  the  girl. 

He  had  read  "Alice  in  Wonderland," 
that  treasure  book  for  all  bright  children, 
and  so  he  thought  it  was  best  not  to  eat 
any  of  the  cakes  himself  He  would  try 
them  on  the  animals  in  the  Park  instead. 

The  Menagerie  is  only  a  short  distance 
from  Sixty-fifth  Street,  and  Harry  soon 
found  himself  in  front  of  the  lion's  cage. 
The  big  beast  had  the  toothache,  and 
he  was  so  out  of  sorts  that  he  was  lashing 
187 


THE          CAKE         OF          CHARITY 

his  tail  and  growling  in  a  way  to  inspire 
awe.  Harry  went  over  to  him  and  spoke 
in  a  low  tone,  and  the  lion  stopped  his  tail 
lashing  long  enough  to  look  at  him  and 
wink,  but  he  was  suffering  too  much 
to  care  for  any  playfellow.  So  Harry 
handed  him  one  of  the  good-nature  cakes, 
and  the  lion  ate  it,  and  in  a  moment  he 
had  forgotten  his  toothache  and  was 
chasing  his  tail  around  the  cage. 

Harry  was  pleased  to  see  how  the  cake 
worked,  and  went  into  the  elephant  house, 
where  he  found  one  of  the  elephants  eat 
ing  up  a  whole  peanut  without  offering  any 
to  the  other  elephants.  He  spoke  to  him, 
and  the  elephant  looked  ashamed,  but 
went  on  crunching  the  peanut.  So  Harry 
gave  him  a  piece  of  the  charity  cake  and 
another  peanut,  which  he  had  picked  off 
the  ground.  If  Central  Park  were  to  be 
deserted  ten  years  by  people,  birds,  and 
beasts,  when  they  returned  to  it,  they 

188 


THE          CAKE          OF          CHARITY 

would  find  where  the  menagerie  and  bear- 
caves  and  bird-houses  had  been — lofty  pea 
nut  trees  would  be  waving  their  beautiful 
green  limbs.  Don't  tell  me  that  peanuts 
don't  grow  on  trees,  for  I  know  better.  If 
chestnuts  grow  on  chestnut  trees  and  wal 
nuts  on  walnut  trees,  of  course  it  is  reason 
able  to  suppose  that  peanuts  grow  on  pea 
nut  trees. 

As  soon  as  the  elephant  had  eaten  the 
cake,  he  broke  open  the  peanut  and  po 
litely  offered  half  of  it  to  his  companion 
beast.  And  the  latter  grabbed  it  without 
so  much  as  a  thank  you. 

Harry  had  now  learned  all  he  wanted  to 
know  about  the  properties  of  the  cakes. 
He  was  a  little  sorry  that  he  hadn't  kept  a 
malice  cake  that  he  might  have  given  a 
piece  to  one  of  the  gentle  deer.  He  was 
sure  that  it  would  have  developed  the 
temper  of  a  tiger  in  a  minute.  But  I'm 
glad  he  didn't.  There  are  enough  tigerish 
189 


THE          CAKE          OF          CHARITY 

tempers  in  the  world  without  adding  to 
them. 

On  Fifth  Avenue  there  dwelt  a  man 
who  was  as  rich  as  a  king  in  a  fairy  book. 
And  he  was  as  mean  as  he  was  rich,  and 
wouldn't  give  a  cent  to  a  poor  man  even 
on  Christmas  day.  Harry  knew  him  by 
reputation,  and  it  had  always  worried  him 
to  think  that  with  so  many  poor  people 
as  there  were  in  the  city  this  man  should 
hang  on  to  his  money  with  such  tenacity. 
There's  another  big  word,  but  if  you  sup 
pose  that  I  am  going  to  give  up  big  words 
just  because  you  won't  need  them  for  a 
year  or  two,  you're  mistaken.  A  big  word 
is  only  made  up  of  several  little  words, 
and  if  you  learn  a  few  now,  you'll  have 
that  many  less  to  learn  in  the  years  to 
come. 

This  rich  old  man  was  as  cross  as  he 
was  mean.  He  would  not  let  little  boys 
run  around  in  his  front  yard  or  play  rail- 
190 


THE          CAKE         OF          CHARITY 

road  in  his  balconies.  He  used  to  make 
the  servants  of  his  servants  drive  them  off. 
For,  although  he  was  very  mean  to  others, 
he  denied  himself  nothing  that  money 
could  buy,  and  he  had  servants  for  his 
servants,  so  that  his  servants  would  have 
nothing  to  do  but  wait  on  him.  Of  course 
Harry  never  played  on  his  balconies, 
because  he  lived  in  a  flat  and  had  a  fire- 
escape  of  his  own  to  play  on ;  but  he  did 
think  it  hard  that  the  poor  little  raga 
muffins  that  sometimes  sweep  down  on 
Fifth  Avenue  from  the  side  streets  could 
not  have  a  little  innocent  fun  if  they 
wanted  to. 

Harry  wanted  to  give  the  old  man  some 
of  the  cake,  but  how  to  make  him  eat  it 
he  did  not  know.  That  afternoon  he 
waited  near  the  palace  of  the  rich  man 
until  his  coach  and  eight  came  up  from 
his  office.  He  had  made  his  money 
selling  soap,  and  he  rode  to  and  from  his 
191 


THE  CAKE          OF  CHARITY 

office  in  greater  style  than  that  shown  by 
the  President  of  the  United  States.  He 
had  an  opalescent  coach  drawn  by  cream- 
colored  horses,  and  there  was  nothing 
on  Fifth  Avenue  that  could  approach  it 
for  elegance. 

At  precisely  six  o'clock  the  rich  man 
drove  up  to  his  palace,  and  three  servants 
in  livery  dropped  from  the  coach  to  open 
the  door.  Then  ten  more  came  from 
inside  the  palace  with  a  silken  awning 
upheld  on  golden  poles,  which  they 
held  aloft  so  that  the  great  man  would 
not  get  sunstruck  on  his  way  to  the 
house. 

Now,  Harry  had  heard  that  the  only 
way  to  the  old  man's  consideration  was 
through  his  vanity.  He  had  invented  his 
soap  himself,  and  had  built  his  fortune  up 
from  one  cake  which  he  made  and  sold 
when  he  was  a  boy,  and  he  liked  to  think 
that  it  was  the  best  soap  ever  sold.  Well, 
192 


THE          CAKE          OF          CHARITY 

of  course,  you  know  that  all  soaps  are  the 
best.  If  you  don't  believe  it  read  the 
pretty  advertisements  at  the  back  of  the 
magazines. 

Harry  had  a  very  engaging  manner,  and 
when  the  great  man  stepped  out  of  his 
coach,  Harry  walked  up  to  him,  and  re 
moving  his  cap,  he  said  in  a  tone  of  exces 
sive  sweetness,  unmixed  with  servility : 

"  Mr. ,  I  have  always  used  your  soap, 

and  that  is  why  I  am  such  a  clean  little 
boy  [which  was  the  truth].  Please  take 
a  bit  of  my  cake,  which  is  the  only  way 
I  have  of  showing  how  much  I  like  your 
cakes  of  soap." 

The  millionaire  was  tickled.  The  boy 
had  not  asked  him  to  give,  but  to  take,  and 
that  is  always  an  easy  thing  to  do — for 
some  people.  The  cakes  looked  so  pretty 
and  so  fresh  that  he  broke  off  a  large  piece 
from  each  one.  First  he  ate  the  good 
nature  cake,  and  he  had  no  sooner  done 

'93 


THE  CAKE          OF          CHARITY 

so  than  his  face  beamed  with  sweetness, 
and  he  patted  Harry  on  the  head  and  said  : 
"  My  little  man,  you  are  a  good  fellow  to 
be  so  thoughtful.  I  never  ate  such  deli 
cious  cake.  If  you  will  bring  me  some 
more  to-morrow  I  will  buy  it  of  you — 
provided  you  sell  it  at  the  wholesale  price. 
Then  he  took  a  bite  of  the  charity  cake, 
and  in  an  instant  he  smote  his  forehead 
and  said  :  "  Mercy  me,  what  suffering  there 
is  in  this  city.  Bring  me  my  bags  of  gold, 
and  you,  boy,  jump  in  with  me,  and  we 
will  visit  the  poor  and  do  what  we  can  to 
relieve  them." 

Harry  was  overjoyed.  He  jumped  into 
the  coach.  The  servants,  who  were  too 
astonished  to  speak,  hurried  out  with  bags 
of  gold  until  the  floor  and  the  front  seat 
were  piled  up  with  them. 

Then  the  millionaire  told  the  coachman 
to  go  where  Harry  wished,  and  as  the  boy 
was  familiar  with  the  quarter  of  the  city 
194 


THE          CAKE         OF          CHARITY 

where  alms  were  most  needed,  they  were 
soon  speeding  down  town. 

As  they  came  near  to  the  squalid  por 
tion  of  the  town,  the  old  man's  face  glowed 
with  sweetness.  "  To  think  that  I  never 
realized  what  I  could  do  with  my  money 
before,"  said  he.  "  This  is  better  than 
making  soap  or  selling  it,  for  it  will  be 
making  happiness — by  wholesale.  Won't 
it,  my  boy  ? "  said  he  to  Harry. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  the  lad,  and,  strange  to 
say,  his  eyes  glistened,  although  he  was 
anything  but  a  cry-baby. 

Then  Harry  developed  a  new  power. 
He  found  he  could  tell  at  a  glance  who 
deserved  help  and  who  did  not.  All  the 
evening  they  drove  from  house  to  house, 
and  Harry  distributed  the  money  until  the 
last  bag  was  emptied  and  the  last  woman 
had  murmured  her  thanks. 

And  if  they  had  done  nothing  else,  the 
spectacle  of  the  beautiful  horses  and  the 


THE          CAKE         OF          CHARITY 

gorgeous  coach  would  have  been  a  good 
one  for  the  poor  people,  who  seldom  saw 
anything  finer  than  a  junk  wagon  in  the 
way  of  an  equipage. 

The  beautiful  thing  about  the  cakes  was 
that  this  effect  never  wore  off.  The  ele 
phant  to  this  day  divides  his  peanuts  with 
his  companion.  The  big  lion  is  still  good- 
tempered.  And  the  old  man  and  Harry 
rode  around  New  York  night  after  night 
until  there  was  not  a  worthy  poor  person 
in  the  city  who  had  not  been  helped.  But 
I  think  that  if  the  old  man  had  given  them 
all  tickets  to  the  country,  and  a  small  piece 
of  ground  when  they  got  there,  he  would 
have  done  better  yet. 

One  day  I  met  Harry,  and  I  asked  him 
why  he  didn't  try  to  get  a  piece  of  cake 
that  would  make  it  impossible  for  people 
to  be  poor  and  miserable,  and  he  imme 
diately  ran  off  to  the  bakery  to  try  and 
find  some.  But  there  was  no  bakery  there. 
196 


THE          CAKE         OF          CHARITY 

If  he  had  ever  had  a  chance  to  get  such 
cake,  he  had  lost  it.  He  thought  that  the 
shop-keeper  had  moved  somewhere  else, 
but  I  think  she  had  given  up  business. 
No  one  can  buy  at  a  heavy  loss  and  be 
successful,  and  those  malice  cakes  were 
her  ruin. 


THE     BOY    WHO    MADE    A 
TROLLEY     CAR 


GEORGE    STARBUCK    had    al 
ways  lived  in  the  country,  which 
was    the    best  thing   that   could 
have  happened  to  him.     Have  you  ever 
thought,  you  city  child,  how  little  chance 
you    have    to    become   great   or  famous  ? 
You  may  become  rich,  but  the  chances  are 
that  you  will  never  be  President,  and  all 
because  you  were  unfortunate   enough  to 
be  born  and  brought  up  in  the  city. 

You   have   been   taught  to   laugh  each 


THE    BOY    WHO    MADE    A    TROLLEY    CAR 

week  at  the  poor  countryman  who  is  pic 
tured  in  the  comic  weeklies  as  a  sort  of 
cross  between  a  monkey  and  a  sharper, 
but  the  countryman  learned  what  neigh- 
borliness  meant  when  he  was  a  boy,  and 
you  will  never  know  its  meaning  unless 
you  leave  the  crowded  city  before  it  is  too 
late.  Go  up  into  the  country  and  learn 
to  be  neighborly  and  self-reliant,  and  you 
may  get  into  the  history  books ;  and 
future  little  boys  will  have  to  learn  all 
about  you  as  you  have  to  learn  about 
George  Washington,  and  General  Grant, 
and  Daniel  Webster — all  country  boys. 

George  Starbuck  lived  at  Gray  town, 
near  Worcester,  in  Massachusetts,  and  he 
could  make  anything  that  he  had  ever 
seen.  At  seven  he  made  a  wagon,  whit 
tling  the  wheels  out  of  soft  pine  wood,  and 
his  father  rode  in  it  a  half  hour  before  it 
fell  to  pieces  and  broke  his  leg. 

So  when  Mr.  Starbuck  took  George  to 


THE    BOY    WHO    MADE    A    TROLLEY    CAR 

Boston  and  showed  him  trolley  cars,  or 
"  electrics/'  which  is  the  absurd  name  they 
give  them  there,  George  said  : 

"  I'll  make  one  when  I  get  home." 

Remember,  he  was  only  thirteen.  But 
make  one  he  did.  How  he  knew  what 
kind  of  timber  to  use  passes  me,  but  at 
the  end  of  a  week  he  called  his  father  out 
to  his  workshop,  which  had  formerly  been 
a  wagon  shed,  and  there  was  a  trolley  car, 
life-size,  and  for  all  the  world  like  one  of 
those  that  run  out  to  Cambridge  and 
Arlington. 

Mr.  Starbuck  was  delighted. 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  with  it,  my 
son  ?  "  asked  he. 

"  Well,  I  had  some  thoughts  of  selling 
it,"  said  George  ;  "  but,  after  all,  money 
is  not  everything,  so  now  I  think  I'll  take 
you  and  mother  and  a  party  of  neighbors 
down  to  Boston  in  it;  and  when  I  get 
there,  the  neighbors  can  go  sight-seeing, 


THE    BOY    WHO    MADE    A    TROLLEY    CAR 

and  I'll  make  enough  money  running  it 
to  raise  the  mortgage  that  is  on  this 
farm." 

When  you  grow  up,  you  will  find  that 
farmers  raise  a  great  many  things  on  their 
farms,  but  that  mortgages  are  sometimes 
very  hard  to  raise ;  but  it  is  a  heap  of  sat 
isfaction  to  raise  one.  So,  you  see,  George 
was  a  good  boy  to  answer  his  father  in 
that  way. 

"  There's  no  time  like  the  present  for 
things  that  are  pleasant,"  said  Mr.  Star- 
buck  ;  so  they  decided  to  take  the  trolley 
to  Boston  the  very  next  day.  Now,  you 
may  have  taken  the  trolley  to  Boston 
yourself — but  not  in  the  way  they  took  it 
—on  a  platform  car. 

They  invited  their  neighbors  to  come 
early  next  morning  and  start  with  them 
for  Boston,  and  twenty  accepted  the  invi 
tation.  George  and  his  father  and  mother 
ran  the  heavy  trolley  car  upon  a  low-hung 
204 


THE    BOY    WHO     MADE    A    TROLLEY    CAR 

wagon  that  they  used  when  they  wanted 
to  carry  plate-glass  to  market,  and  then 
the  neighbors  and  all  piled  into  the  car, 
and  George  hitched  a  pair  of  cattle — which 
is  country  for  a  yoke  of  oxen — to  the 
wagon,  and  they  were  drawn  down  to  the 
station  with  ease.  It  was,  of  course,  easier 
to  take  the  car  off  the  wagon  than  to  put 
it  on.  They  started  the  willing  oxen  home, 
sure  that  they  would  find  their  way  by 
themselves.  Then  they  all  sat  down  in 
the  car  to  wait  for  a  freight  train  to  come. 
In  a  few  minutes  a  freight  train  stopped 
to  unload  some  empty  milk  cans,  and 
George  removed  his  cap,  and  politely 
asked  a  brakeman  if  he  would  help  him 
put  his  trolley  car  upon  a  platform  car,  as 
he  was  going  to  take  it  to  Boston.  The 
brakeman  had  been  born  in  the  country, 
and  that  made  him  willing  to  be  helpful ; 
so  he  jumped  down  and  signaled  the  en 
gineer  not  to  start,  and  then,  after  the 
205 


THE    BOY    WHO    MADE    A    TROLLEY    CAR 

neighbors  had  all  gotten  out  of  the  trolley 
he,  with  the  help  of  the  Starbucks,  put  the 
car  upon  the  platform  car.  Then  George 
and  his  parents  and  all  the  neighbors 
stepped  inside  of  the  car,  and  the  train 
started  for  Boston. 

Pretty  soon  the  conductor,  who  was  a 
city-bred  man,  came  along  and  asked  them 
for  their  fare. 

George's  feelings  were  hurt,  and  he  said : 
"  Why,  why  should  we  pay  any  fare  ?  I 
am  taking  my  parents  and  some  neighbors 
to  Boston  in  my  own  trolley  car.  I  will 
pay  you  freight  for  the  car,  but  not  one 
cent  for  car  fare." 

The  neighbors  all  cheered  these  noble 
words,  which  sounded  very  much  like  the 
famous  sayings  of  famous  men,  and  the 
conductor  was  covered  with  confusion,  and 
left  them  to  enjoy  their  trip.  In  a  few 
hours  they  ran  into  the  freight  yards  at 
Boston,  and  then  the  pleasant  brakeman 

ao6 


THE    BOY    WHO    MADE    A    TROLLEY    CAR 

assisted  the  three  to  place  their  car  upon  a 
trolley  track,  and  their  journey  was  ended. 
You  may  wonder  why  the  neighbors  did 
not  assist.  They  wanted  to  the  worst 
way,  but  George  said  : 

"  No  ;  this  is  a  holiday  trip,  and  I  don't 
want  you  to  feel  that  you  have  any  chores 
to  do.  Mother  and  father  and  I  will  do 
all  that  is  necessary,  and  you  must  have  as 
good  a  time  as  you  can,  and  meet  me  here 
at  twelve  to-night,  for  I  expect  to  go  back 
then." 

The  neighbors  gave  him  three  times 
three  and  a  tiger ;  but  as  he  didn't  know 
know  what  to  do  with  a  tiger  in  Boston, 
he  gave  it  back  to  them,  and  they  went 
away  with  it. 

George  fitted  the  trolley  to  the  over 
head  wires,  and  his  mother  turned  on  the 
current  and  then  took  her  seat  inside,  and 
Mr.  Starbuck  acted  as  motorman,  and 
they  glided  up  Summer  Street  as  if  they 
207 


THE    BOY    WHO    MADE    A    TROLLEY    CAR 

had  always  done  it.  I  think  that  George 
is  deserving  of  a  good  deal  of  credit  for 
having  made  so  big  a  vehicle  in  a  week 
with  no  tools  but  a  jack-knife  and  a 
scythe. 

At  Arch  Street  they  were  hailed  by  a 
man  who  was  standing  on  the  corner. 
Mr.  Starbuck  stopped  at  once.  This 
naturally  puzzled  the  man  on  the  corner, 
because  as  a  general  thing  a  trolley  car 
does  not  stop  for  passengers.  As  soon  as 
he  stepped  on  board  he  asked  George, 
who  came  around  for  his  fare,  why  the  car 
stopped. 

"  Why,  this  is  father's  first  trip,  and  he 
doesn't  know  the  ropes  very  well.  He 
thought  it  would  be  easier  for  you  to  get 
on  the  car  if  it  stopped.  The  fare  is  ten 
cents,  for  you  see  this  is  really  my  private 
car,  and  I'm  trying  to  raise  the  mortgage 
on  father's  farm." 

The  passenger,  who  had  been  born  in 
208 


THE    BOY    WHO     MADE    A    TROLLEY     CAR 

the  country,  paid  the  ten  cents  at  once, 
but  he  advised  George  to  stick  to  the 
usual  five  cent  fare.  "  For,"  said  he, 
"  most  of  these  people  are  city  bred,  and 
they  won't  care  a  snap  about  your  mort 
gage.  They  are  not  neighborly  enough." 

This  was  the  first  time  that  George  had 
heard  that  city  people  were  not  neigh 
borly,  and  it  grieved  him.  But  the  car 
soon  filled  up,  and  even  at  five  cents  a 
head  he  had  a  pocket  full  of  nickels.  He 
went  out  on  the  front  platform,  and  said 
to  his  father :  "  I  guess  we  can  go  back 
to-morrow  with  the  mortgage  raised." 

Then  his  mother  came  out  and  joined 
them.  They  were  going  through  the 
shopping  district,  and  could  not  move  any 
faster  than  a  mile  an  hour,  because  there 
were  so  many  women  crossing  the  tracks 
to  go  to  the  shops. 

"  Look  here,"  said  Mrs.  Starbuck  to 
George,  "  there's  no  use  letting  these  peo- 
209 


THE    BOY    WHO     MADE    A    TROLLEY    CAR 

pie  ride  far  for  five  cents.  It's  a  private 
car.  Why  not  call  out  f  change  cars,'  and 
then  fill  up  the  car  with  new  passengers  ?  " 

I  fancy  that  Mrs.  Starbuck  had  a  little 
city  blood  in  her.  George  was  a  dutiful 
son,  and  he  immediately  stepped  to  the 
door  of  the  car  and  yelled  :  "  All  out !  " 
and  the  passengers  scrambled  out  like  a 
flock  of  sheep,  and  he  was  free  to  fill  the 
car  up  again.  Only  the  first  passenger 
stayed  in,  and  he  said :  "  That  was  a 
clever  move."  So  George  said  he  might 
ride  all  day  long  if  he  wanted  to,  and, 
although  he  was  very  busy,  he  did  ride 
all  day  long,  because  such  chances  don't 
come  very  often. 

Along  in  the  afternoon  they  were  pass 
ing  the  Hotel  Vendome,  and  the  neigh 
bors  came  out  and  hailed  the  car,  not 
recognizing  George.  They  had  been  sight 
seeing,  and  they  had  all  registered  at  the 
hotel  in  hopes  of  seeing  their  names  in  the 


THE    BOY    WHO    MADE    A    TROLLEY    CAR 

newspapers.  Of  course  George  would 
not  let  them  pay  a  cent,  and,  as  they 
nearly  filled  the  car  and  rode  way  out 
to  Brookline,  he  didn't  make  much 
money  that  trip.  But  he  left  them  at 
Brookline,  and  ran  back  quickly  to  the 
shopping  district,  where  he  soon  made  up 
a  load. 

One  time  a  stout,  prosperous-looking 
man  got  upon  the  car  and  asked  George 
what  line  he  belonged  to.  George  told 
him  politely  that  it  was  a  little  line  of  his 
own. 

Then  the  prosperous-looking  man,  who 
said  he  was  the  president  of  one  of  the 
leading  car  lines,  quoted  the  famous  words 
of  General  Grant,  and  said  : 

"  Do  you  propose  to  fight  it  out  on 
this  line  all  summer  ?  " 

"  No,  sir  ;  as  soon  as  I  raise  the  mort 
gage  I  am  going  to  take  my  car  home 
and  make  a  hen-house  out  of  it." 


THE    BOY    WHO    MADE    A    TROLLEY    CAR 

"  Are  you  a  country  boy  ?  "  asked  the 
man. 

"  I  am,  sir,'*  said  George,  proudly. 

"  Run  all  you  want,  my  boy.  I  give 
you  permission.  I  was  once  a  country 
boy  myself,  and  if  you  can  make  an  hon 
est  penny  out  of  these  people,  you  deserve 
to  raise  your  mortgage.  Only  you  must 
give  me  a  dollar  to  pay  for  your  license." 

George  handed  him  the  dollar,  and  he 
got  off  the  car.  And  now  I  must  tell  you 
that  the  man  was  not  president  of  any 
company,  but  simply  a  bad  man  who  saw 
a  chance  to  make  a  dollar  out  of  simple- 
hearted  George.  But  George  was  re 
warded,  as  a  big  theatre  party  boarded  the 
car  and  rode  five  blocks  to  the  theatre. 
And  when  they  left,  he  counted  up  his 
money,  and  found  that  he  had  just  enough 
to  raise  the  mortgage. 

It  was  eight  o'clock,  and  as  none  of 
them  had  had  a  bite  to  eat  all  day,  he  ran 


THE    BOY    WHO    MADE    A    TROLLEY    CAR 

the  car  off  on  a  siding,  and  they  took  din 
ner  at  the  Parker  House,  where  they  had 
Parker  House  rolls  and  maple-syrup. 

After  dinner  they  went  back  to  the  car, 
and  found  it  full  of  street  boys.  "  Want  a 
ride  ?  "  asked  George,  and  the  street  boys 
shouted  yes;  so  George  took  them  all  over 
the  city  for  nothing.  But  I  am  sorry  to 
say  that  the  boys  were  rude  enough  to 
ask  him  whether  the  car  wasn't  home 
made,  and  this  so  incensed  Mr.  Starbuck 
that  he  drove  them  all  out. 

But  by  this  time  it  was  nearly  twelve 
o'clock,  so  they  ran  down  to  the  freight 
yard,  and  were  lucky  enough  to  find  the 
same  brakeman  there.  The  neighbors 
had  come,  too,  all  tired  out  and  loaded 
down  with  handbills  and  samples  of  dif 
ferent  foods,  for  they  had  been  to  a  food 
show  at  the  Mechanics'  Institute.  They 
reached  Graytown  early  in  the  morning. 
The  faithful  oxen  had  come  down  to  meet 
213 


THE    BOY    WHO    MADE    A    TROLLEY    CAR 

them,  and  this  time  all  the  neighbors 
helped  to  lift  the  car  on  to  the  wagon,  so 
it  made  it  easier. 

Then  when  they  reached  the  Star 
bucks*,  George  raised  the  mortgage  as  high 
as  he  could,  and  they  all  cheered  and 
cheered,  and  told  him  they  had  never  had 
so  good  a  time  in  their  lives,  and  they 
hoped  he'd  have  many  happy  returns  of 
the  day. 

Then  George  put  the  trolley  car  into 
the  hen-yard,  and  the  hens  took  to  it  at 
once. 

As  for  George,  he  became  a  simple 
country  boy  once  more.  But  if  he  had 
been  a  city  boy,  he  would  have  run  that 
trolley  car  into  the  ground. 

But  there  is  not  a  city  boy  in  the 
United  States  from  Portland,  Maine,  to 
Portland,  Oregon,  who  could  have  built  a 
trolley  car  inside  of  a  week,  inside  of  a 
shed,  with  a  jack-knife  and  a  scythe. 
214 


CYRIL  AND   THE    GNOME 


THERE  was  not  a  doubt  about 
it,  the  post-box  on  the  lamp 
post  at  the  corner  was  be 
witched.  The  people  in  the  vicinity  were 
most  of  them  writers  and  wrote  the  loveli 
est  stories  that  you  ever  read,  and  they 
always  posted  them  in  the  post-box  on 
the  corner,  and  had  done  so  for  years ; 
indeed,  some  of  the  very  loveliest  stories 
had  been  posted  twenty  times  in  that  same 
box.  How  they  ever  came  back  had  often 


217 


CYRIL         AND        THE        GNOME 

puzzled  the  letter-box,  who  was  of  an  in 
quisitive  turn  of  mind,  but  they  were  cer 
tainly  posted  about  once  in  so  often. 

That  was  before  the  box  was  bewitched. 
Now  no  matter  how  many  stories  and 
poems  and  riddles  and  charades  were 
dropped  into  the  aperture,  not  one  could 
be  found  when  the  postman  made  his 
rounds.  The  box  was  always  empty.  At 
first  people  thought  that  it  was  thieves, 
and  a  man  was  placed  at  the  opposite  cor 
ner  to  look  as  if  he  was  just  passing  by ; 
but  although  he  stood  in  that  attitude  for 
one  whole  hour  after  a  particularly  large 
batch  of  literature  had  been  dropped  into 
the  box  by  at  least  six  different  writers, 
and  although  he  watched  that  box  as  care 
fully  as  a  sleepy  man  could,  yet  not  a  soul 
opened  it.  But  when  the  postman  came 
around,  it  was  perfectly  empty.  Perhaps 
I  have  not  been  explicit  enough,  if  you 
know  what  that  means.  Letters  posted 
218 


CYRIL        AND        THE        GNOME 

in  the  daytime  were  not  lost.  It  was 
only  after  dark  that  the  bewitchment  took 
place. 

Now,  there  was  one  writer  who  never 
wrote  anything  but  fairy  stories,  and  she 
had  a  son  about  ten  years  old  who  knew 
that  there  were  fairies.  He  pitied  children 
who  said  with  a  lofty  air,  "  Oh,  yes,  when 
I  was  a  kid  I  believed  in  fairies,  but  I 
found  out  long  ago  that  there  were  none." 
He  used  to  say  to  these  superior  boys  and 
girls :  "  How  do  you  know  there  aren't 
fairies  ?  The  world  is  a  large  place,  and 
there  are  many  nights  when  you  sleep  from 
eight  until  seven  next  day.  How  can  you 
be  sure  that  the  fairies  do  not  hold  revels 
somewhere  at  night  ?  And  if  anywhere, 
why  not  in  New  York  ?  "  And  then  the 
others  would  say  :  "  Oh,  we  don't  want  to 
argue.  Believe  in  fairies  if  you  want  to, 
and  play  with  blocks  and  dolls,  too ;  but 
we're  beyond  such  things." 

119 


CYRIL         AND        THE        GNOME 

Well,  now,  for  my  part,  I'm  going  on 
sixty,  and  yet  I  wouldn't  say  there  are  no 
fairies,  because  what  would  become  of  the 
beautiful  and  authentic  history  of  Cinder 
ella  if  it  were  proved  that  fairy  folk  were 
imaginary  ?  No,  there  are  fairies,  depend 
upon  it,  and  if  we  haven't  seen  them  it's 
our  misfortune.  I  never  saw  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope,  but  I'm  sure  it's  around 
somewhere. 

This  is  a  good  deal  of  talk,  it  seems  to 
me,  and  nothing  at  all  about  that  post- 
box.  Well,  Cyril  Merton,  who  believed 
in  fairies,  was  sure  that  a  gnome  was  in 
the  box,  and  that  he  was  living  on  letters. 
He  said  nothing  to  any  one,  but  one  night 
after  he  had  gone  to  bed  and  all  the  house 
was  quiet,  he  arose  softly  and  dressed  him 
self,  and  left  his  room  by  means  of  a  rope 
which  he  had  concealed  there  that  day. 
Then  he  went  to  the  post-box. 

He  had  small,  delicate   hands,  and   he 


CYRIL         AND        THE        GNOME 

put  one  in  the  aperture  and  felt  for  the 
letters.  There  was  not  one.  Then  he 
posted  an  envelope  containing  nothing  but 
blank  paper,  and  putting  his  ear  to  the 
opening,  he  listened.  He  could  distinctly 
hear  little  jaws  champing  and  paper  being 
torn.  He  was  now  perfectly  sure  that 
there  was  a  bad  little  fairy  inside  the  box. 
So  he  put  his  mouth  to  the  aperture  and 
said : 

"Little  gnome,  little  gnome,  come  from  within; 
To  eat  up  the  letters  is  surely  a  sin." 

I  don't  say  that  the  gnome  would  have 
minded  you  or  me  or  any  of  those  children 
that  don't  believe  in  fairies,  but  I  do  know 
that  as  soon  as  the  gnome  heard  Cyril's 
voice  he  oozed  out  of  the  aperture  and  sat 
himself  down  cross-legged  on  the  top. 
He  was  about  the  size  of  a  squirrel,  and 
wore  a  tight-fitting  suit  made  of  woven 
grasses  of  different  shades  of  green.  A 
little  bit  of  the  envelope  of  the  letter  that 


CYRIL         AND        THE        GNOME 

Cyril  had  posted  was  sticking  to  his  lip, 
but  the  rest  was  evidently  eaten. 

Cyril  came  to  business  at  once.  He 
said :  "  Don't  you  know,  little  gnome, 
that  you're  making  trouble  for  a  great 
many  people  ?  Most  all  who  live  around 
here  write  stories,  and  they  get  their  living 
by  selling  them.  If  you  eat  all  their 
stories,  after  a  while  they  won't  have  any 
money  to  buy  food  and  clothes,  and  then 
they  will  all  starve." 

The  little  gnome  grinned,  and  began  to 
whistle — the  faintest,  highest  whistle  you 
ever  heard.  "  I  don't  care  for  people,"  he 
said,  finally.  "  People  are  never  kind  to 
me.  I'm  after  a  story  ;  that's  why  I  eat 
the  letters.  You  see  the  king  of  the 
gnomes  has  offered  the  hand  of  his  daugh 
ter  in  marriage  to  the  gnome  that  can  tell 
the  best  story  ;  so  I've  been  eating  these 
letters  steadily  for  a  month  now,  in  hopes 
of  learning  one  ;  but  I  don't  seem  to  get 


CYRIL         AND        THE        GNOME 

one  in  my  head — only  in  my  mouth — and 
I'm  afraid  that  before  I  learn  one  some 
other  gnome  will  step  in  ahead  of  me  and 
marry  the  princess.  She's  a  beautiful  crea 
ture,  as  green  as  a  katydid,  and  her  eyes 
are  as  red  as  fire." 

Cyril  felt  like  laughing  at  the  idea  of 
learning  a  story  by  eating  the  paper  on 
which  it  was  written,  but  he  was  too  courte 
ous  to  do  so.  He  said :  "  Now,  Mr. 
Gnome,  you've  gone  about  this  business 
the  wrong  way.  You've  eaten  up  a  lot  of 
valuable  manuscripts,  and  they  haven't 
done  you  any  good  at  all ;  but  I  can  teach 
you  stories  just  as  fast  as  you  want  to  learn 
them,  if  you'll  come  up  to  my  house  any 
night." 

The  gnome  showed  his  delight  in  his 
little  green  face.  "Oh,  I'll  come  all  right, 
only  I  don't  want  you  to  have  a  crowd 
there  to  look  at  me.  I'm  not  fond  of 
human  beings.  You're  the  only  one  that 
223 


CYRIL        AND        THE        GNOME 

was  ever  civil  to  me,  and  I  won't  forget 


it." 


"  Come  on  now,"  said  Cyril ;  so  the 
gnome  jumped  to  the  pavement,  and 
skipped  along  beside  Cyril,  whistling  in 
his  tiny,  shrill  way,  and  they  soon  came  to 
the  rope  hanging  from  the  window. 

"  Here,  don't  try  to  climb  that,"  said 
the  gnome,  as  Cyril  twisted  the  end 
around  his  wrists  and  swung  himself  off 
the  ground.  "  I  know  a  way  worth  two 
of  that.  Put  your  foot  on  my  head." 

"  I'm  afraid  of  hurting  you." 

"  Put  your  foot  on  my  head,  I  say," 
said  the  gnome,  in  a  tone  that  invited 
obedience.  Cyril  placed  his  foot  upor. 
the  little  man's  head,  and  felt  himself  rise 
to  his  window  as  if  he  were  floating  on  a 
bit  of  dandelion  down.  By  the  way,  why 
do  they  call  it  dandelion  down  when  it's 
up  most  of  the  time  ?  " 

When  Cyril  and  the  gnome  were  in  the 
224 


CYRIL        AND        THE        GNOME 

room,  the  former  threw  himself  upon  the 
bed,  and  the  latter  sat  upon  the  foot 
board. 

"  Now,  tell  me  a  story  that  will  please 
the  king." 

So  Cyril  told  him  "  Puss  in  Boots," 
and  he  was  delighted. 

"  Say,  did  you  make  that  up  ?  "  said 
he,  when  Cyril  had  finished. 

"  No  ;  it's  older  than  we  are,"  said  the 
boy.  You  see  he  knew  a  good  deal. 

"  Not  older  than  I  am,"  said  the 
gnome,  decidedly.  "  I'm  going  on  a 
thousand  and  two." 

"Phew!"  said  Cyril.  "You  don't 
anywheres  near  look  it." 

"  I  don't  feel  a  day  over  nine  hundred, 
but  then  all  my  family  are  very  young 
feeling.  My  grandfather  is  four  thou 
sand,  and  you'd  never  take  him  to  be  over 
three  thousand,  seven  hundred.  It's  be 
cause  we're  very  particular  not  to  let  the 
225 


CYRIL         AND        THE        GNOME 

sun  shine  on  us.  I've  never  seen  the  sun 
in  my  life.  But  I  had  a  cousin  who  fol 
lowed  the  human's  proverb,  *  Early  to 
bed  and  early  to  rise/  and  the  sunshine 
shriveled  him  up  so  that  he  looks  hun 
dreds  of  years  older  than  he  is.  He  used 
to  go  to  bed  at  seven  in  the  evening,  and 
get  up  at  six  in  the  morning,  and  we  all 
go  to  bed  at  three  in  the  morning  and  get 
up  at  eight  in  the  evening." 

Cyril  looked  at  his  clock.  It  was  five 
minutes  to  three. 

"  I'm  sorry  to  hurry  you,"  he  said, 
"  but  if  that's  the  case,  you'd  better  be 
going." 

"  Well,"  said  the  gnome,  "  I  thank  you 
for  the  story,  and  you  may  depend  upon 
it  I  won't  eat  any  more  of  those  inky 
old  letters.  They  didn't  taste  good  a 
bit,  and  if  I  hadn't  loved  the  king's 
daughter  very  much,  I  wouldn't  have 
eaten  one." 

226 


CYRIL        AND        THE        GNOME 

"  Come  again  to-morrow  ni — "  began 
Cyril,  but  the  gnome  had  vanished. 

He  waited  a  week,  but  the  little  imp 
did  not  come  back.  On  the  other  hand 
no  more  letters  were  lost,  and  the  writers 
were  so  encouraged  that  they  wrote  an  un 
usual  number  of  beautiful  stories,  and  I 
dare  say  you  may  read  some  of  them  in 
the  magazines  before  long. 

Cyril  knew  that  it  would  be  foolish  for 
him  to  tell  his  neighbors  that  he  had 
caught  a  gnome  eating  their  letters,  be 
cause  they  were  not  enlightened  enough 
to  believe  him  ;  but  he  did  tell  his  mother, 
and  she  said: 

"  Well,  I  suspected  as  much.  I  knew 
no  thieving  letter-carrier  could  have  got 
ten  away  with  them." 

"  But  he  didn't  come  back,"  said  Cyril, 
half  crying,  "  and    he    said    that    he  was 
going  to  tell  me  how  the  king  liked  the 
story  he  had  learned/' 
227 


CYRIL         AND        THE        GNOME 

"  Give  him  time,  my  dear,"  said  his 
mother.  "  I  take  it  as  a  good  sign.  If 
the  story  hadn't  suited,  he  would  have 
been  back  for  another.  I  dare  say  that  he 
is  busy  getting  ready  for  his  marriage." 

And  that  night  the  gnome  proved  that 
Mrs.  Merton  had  guessed  right,  for  after 
Cyril  had  been  sleeping  some  hours,  he 
was  awakened  by  a  breath  of  cold  air  upon 
his  face,  and  opening  his  eyes,  he  beheld 
the  little  gnome  sitting  upon  the  pillow 
by  his  side. 

"  You're  a  brick  !  "  were  his  first  words 
to  Cyril. 

Cyril  was  wide  awake  in  an  instant,  and 
he  said  :  "  So  the  king  liked  it  ?  " 

He  jumped  out  of  bed  the  better  to  lis 
ten.  As  for  the  gnome,  he  leaped  to  the 
foot-board  and  crossed  his  knees  in  the 
drollest  way  imaginable. 

"  Like  it  ?  "  said  he.  "  Why,  I  thought 
he'd  never  stop  laughing.  He  said  that 


CYRIL        AND        THE        GNOME 

it  was  the  best  story  he'd  ever  heard,  and 
he  gave  me  his  daughter's  hand  as  he  had 
promised,  and  I've  been  so  busy  getting 
ready  for  the  wedding  that  I  .haven't  had 
time  to  come  before.  You  see,  I  had  to 
engage  a  big  orchestra  of  crickets  and  katy 
dids  and  frogs  and  locusts,  and  I  had  to 
go  to  Japan  for  them,  because  the  best  in 
sect  musicians  are  Japanese.  It  takes  time 
to  go  to  Japan  even  the  way  I  travel — on 
a  moonbeam.  We're  to  be  married  to 
morrow  night,  and  I've  brought  you  a 
piece  of  wedding  cake  and  a  present. 
Only  don't  eat  the  cake  until  to-morrow, 
or  it  will  make  you  dream.  And  now  I 
must  be  going  as  it's  most  three  o'clock." 

Cyril  got  up  and  shook  hands  with  the 
little  fellow,  sincerely  sorry  that  he  was 
going. 

"  Just  think,"  said  the  gnome,  "  if  you 
hadn't  come  that  night,  I  should  still  be 
eating  those  horrid,  inky  old  manuscripts 
229 


CYRIL         AND        THE        GNOME 

and  never  getting  any  story  at  all  for  the 
king.  Oh,  I  wish  you  could  see  the 
princess.  She's  a  young  little  thing — only 
two  hundred,  but  she's  so  pretty.  Well, 
I  must  be  going.  Here's  the  cake,  and 
here's  a  pin  to  remember  me  by.  It's  an 
emerald  made  out  of  a  real  katydid.  Bye 
bye." 

And  the  gnome  vanished. 

In  the  morning  Cyril  found  a  piece  of 
toadstool  on  his  pillow.  That  was  the 
wedding  cake.  He  did  not  eat  it.  But 
he  has  the  emerald  pin  to  this  day. 


THE    BUBBLE    BOY 


GEORGE     TRUESDELL     had 
been     a     naughty     boy.      His 
mother  had  said  that  as  soon  as 
his  father  came  home  he  was  to  be  pun 
ished.      George  sat  in  his  little  attic  room, 
and  looked  anxiously  out  of  the  window 
for  his  father's  coming. 

Mr.  Truesdell  had  gone  to  town  with  a 
load  of  cabbages — he  was  a  farmer — and 
George  knew  that  when  he  came  home 
and  heard  that  he  had  been  naughty,  he 


THE  BUBBLE  BOY 

would  tell  him  sorrowfully,  but  firmly,  to 
go  out  into  the  woodshed  and — he  hated 
to  think  of  what  would  follow.  After 
that  the  skies  would  be  clear;  but  that 
little  five  minutes  was  what  bothered  him. 
"  I  wish  I  had  a  twin  brother  who  didn't 
mind  a  licking,  and  then,  when  I  cut  up, 
papa'd  attend  to  him  and  think  it  was  me." 
What  is  that  speck  rising  out  of  the 
birches,  southeast  of  the  road  ?  Is  it  a 
cow  ?  No,  it  looks  like  a  bubble  as  large 
as  a  pumpkin  and  of  all  the  colors  of  the 
rainbow.  Then  a  gust  of  wind  blows  it 
into  the  room.  It  hits  the  window-shade 
cord  as  it  passes  it  and  bursts,  and,  presto  ! 
there  stands  a  little  fellow  the  exact  count 
erpart  of  George. 

"  Hello,"  said  George,  "who  are  you  ?  " 

cc  I'm  a  boy  that  loves  to  be  punished. 

I  love  hard  work,  I  love  to  study,  I  love 

to   be  sent  to  bed   a  half  hour  ahead  of 


time 


THE  BUBBLE  BOY 

"  Why,  then,  you're  the  fellow  I'm 
looking  for,"  said  George,  impulsively, 
"  because  I  hate  all  those  things.  What'll 
you  take  to  live  up  here  and  get  punished 
for  me  and  do  all  my  hard  work  ? " 

"  I'll  do  it  for  my  board  and  keep." 

"  Bully  for  you.  What's  your  name  ?  " 
said  George. 

"  Better  call  me  George  as  long  as  that's 
your  name.  I'm  only  two  minutes  old, 
and  I  hadn't  thought  of  a  name.  But 
you  understand  that  your  folks  are  not  to 
know  that  I'm  here.  Whenever  I'm 
needed,  you'll  hide  and  I'll  take  your  place. 
The  rest  of  the  time  I'll  stay  up  here,  and 
hide  under  the  bed  if  anybody  comes  into 
the  room." 

"  But  won't  you  be  hungry  and  want  ex 
ercise  ? " 

"  Oh,  I'll  exercise  at  night,  and  you  can 
smuggle  food  up  to  me.  I  won't  need 
much." 


THE  BUBBLE  BOY 

Just  then  George  looked  out  of  the 
window  and  saw  his  father  driving  home 
in  the  ox  cart.  His  "  Gee,  haw  "  floated 
through  the  calm  of  the  October  after 
noon  in  a  drowsy  tone.  But  George  knew 
that  the  tone  would  be  anything  but 
drowsy  when  his  father  learned  that  he  had 
been  naughty,  and  he  groaned  aloud. 

"  What's  the  matter? "  asked  his  double, 
the  bubble  boy. 

"  Oh,  I've  been  bad,  and  papa's  going  to 
flog  me." 

"  Oh,  let  me  be  flogged  instead.  You 
don't  know  how  I  long  to  feel  a  little  pain. 
I  think  I'll  like  it  as  much  as  you  like  pie/' 

George  looked  at  him  in  astonishment. 

"  You're  a  queer  fellow.  It  doesn't 
seem  exactly  right,  but  papa  won't  know 
the  difference, and  I'm  sorry  I  was  naughty; 
so  you  may  go  down  and  get  punished, 
and  I'll  stay  up  here." 

A  few  minutes  later  Farmer  Truesdell 


THE  BUBBLE  BOY 

drove  his  team  into  the  barn-yard,  and  un 
yoked  the  oxen,  leaving  them  to  wander  off 
down  the  lane.  Then  he  came  into  the 
kitchen,  where  his  wife  was  preparing  din 
ner. 

"Hello,  Molly.  Sold  'em  all  early. 
People  seemed  hungry  for  cabbages  to-day. 
Those  medicine  Indians  was  on  the  flat, 
and  I  bought  a  bow  an'  arrow  for  George. 
He's  be'n  pesterin'  me  for  one,  an'  seein' 
to-morrow's  his  birthday,  I  bought  'em. 
Where  is  he  ?  " 

Mrs.  Truesdell  shook  her  head. 

"  He's  up  in  his  room,  where  I  sent 
him.  He's  been  very  trying  to-day.  He 
teased  Cynthia,  and  when  I  scolded  him, 
he  was  impertinent  to  me.  And  then,  to 
cap  all,  he  broke  the  pantry  window, 
throwing  stones  at  the  chickens,  although 
I  told  him  not  to." 

Mr.  Truesdell  put  the  bow  and  arrow 
into  the  north  pantry. 


THE  BUBBLE  BOY 

"  I  don't  know  what  gets  into  that  boy 
sometimes,"  said  he.  "  I  suppose  I'll 
have  to  flog  him." 

"  Don't  be  too  hard  on  him,"  said  his 
mother. 

"  Floggin'  was  good  for  me,  and  I  guess 
it's  good  for  him.  I  won't  be  any  harder 
than's  necessary,  an'  when  I'm  done,  it'll 
be  all  over  as  far  as  I'm  concerned." 

Seth  Truesdell  went  to  the  foot  of  the 
attic  stairs  and  called : 

"  George  ! " 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"  Come  down." 

"  You  go,"  said  George,  and  his  double 
went  gleefully  down  the  stairs. 

George  took  up  his  station  at  the 
window,  where  he  could  command  a  view 
of  the  wood-shed.  But  first  he  locked 
the  door,  for  fear  his  mother  might  come 
up  and  find  him. 

The  double  walked  into  the  kitchen. 
238 


THE  BUBBLE  BOY 

"  My  boy/'  said  Mr.  Truesdell,  "  I'm 
sorry  to  have  to  punish  you  when  I  come 
home,  but  your  mother  tells  me  that  you 
have  been  impertinent  and  disobedient,  so 
come  out  into  the  woodshed." 

George's  double,  with  never  a  word, 
walked  out  to  the  woodshed.  Mr.  Trues 
dell  took  a  birch  rod  down  from  its  rest 
ing-place  on  two  nails,  and  told  the  boy  to 
hold  out  his  hand.  Up  in  the  window 
George  was  staring  wildly  and  breathing 
feverishly. 

Ssswish  !  came  the  rod.  Phew,  what  a 
resounding  thwack  !  George  heard  it  dis 
tinctly.  He  would  have  cried  out,  but  his 
double  never  winced.  Four  cuts  of  the 
rod,  and  then  the  double  flung  his  arms 
around  Mr.  Truesdell's  neck  and  hugged 
him. 

"  Thank  you,  thank  you,"  said  he.     It 
had  been  a  pleasure  to   him.     "  As  good 
as  pie,"  as  he  had  told  George. 
239 


THE  BUBBLE  BOY 

Mr.  Truesdell  was  somewhat  surprised 
at  this  outburst,  but  he  was  of  an  affec 
tionate  disposition  and  loved  George 
dearly,  and  he  was  overjoyed  to  think 
that  the  boy  could  take  his  punishment 
in  so  good  a  spirit ;  so  he  returned  the 
caress. 

Then  the  Bubble  Boy  went  into  the 
kitchen  and  kissed  Mrs.  Truesdell,  and 
said  :  "  I'm  sorry  I  was  naughty." 

She  had  half  repented  having  told  her 
husband  about  George's  misdemeanor,  and 
she  patted  the  boy's  shoulder  and  kissed 
him,  and  said  : 

"  Well,  I'm  sure  it  won't  occur  again." 

According  to  schedule,  he  should  now 
have  gone  upstairs  to  relieve  George,  who 
was  wondering  what  was  keeping  him  ;  but 
this  Bubble  Boy  was  having  too  good  a 
time  to  go  up  into  the  hot  little  room. 
He  saw  cake  and  pies,  and  he  smelt  a 
good  chicken  dinner  cooking,  and  as  he 
240 


THE  BUBBLE  BOY 

had  never  eaten  in  his  short  life,  he  deter 
mined  to  stay  and  have  something. 

"  Dinner  most  ready  ?  "  asked  he.  "  I'm 
awful  hungry." 

"  It'll  be  ready  in  ten  minutes,"  said  his 
mother. 

Mr.  Truesdell  had  gone  out  to  feed  the 
hens,  and  the  double  sat  down  by  the 
kitchen  window  and  sniffed  longingly  at 
some  apples. 

"'N  I  have  'napple?"  said  he.  He 
seemed  to  have  mastered  small-boy  dia 
lect  in  a  surprisingly  short  space  of  time. 

His  mother — she  thought  she  was  his 
mother,  although,  as  we  know,  he  had  no 
mother — gave  him  an  apple;  and  when 
dinner  was  served  soon  after,  he  ate  three 
times  as  much  as  George  ever  did,  and 
was  so  jolly  withal  that  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Truesdell  didn't  know  what  had  come 
over  their  boy. 

"  George,  after  dinner  I  wish  you'd  har- 
241 


THE  BUBBLE  BOY 

ness  up  Jack,"  said  the  farmer.  "  I've 
got  to  drive  over  to  Mr.  Gage's  to  get  a 
book  on  hens  that  he  promised  me.  I'm 
going  to  give  you  some  hens  and  let  you 
see  what  you  can  make  out  of  them  with 
the  aid  of  the  book.  I  don't  take  much 
stock  in  hen-books  myself.  I've  always 
made  'em  lay  without  any  book,  and  I 
don't  believe  but  what  hens  laid  before  the 
first  book  was  printed ;  but  I'll  give  you 
something  to  be  interested  in,  and  you 
won't  be  so  apt  to  break  windows  if  your 
time  is  more  occupied." 

The  Bubble  Boy  smiled,  but  said  noth 
ing.  He  was  too  busy  with  his  third  slice 
of  pumpkin  pie  to  talk.  After  he  had 
finished  it,  he  said  : 

"  Can  I  ride  over  with  you  ?  " 

"  I  dunno.  Kinder  late  for  you.  Well, 
seein'  to-morrow's  your  birthday,  I'll  let 
you." 

So  it  happened  that  a  few  minutes 
242 


THE  BUBBLE  BOY 

later  George,  who  had  been  weeping  in  his 
room,  not  daring  to  go  down  and  expose 
the  trick  he  had  played  upon  his  father, 
and  yet  feeling  very  hungry  and  contrite, 
heard  a  sound  of  wheels  in  the  yard 
and  looked  out  of  the  window.  There 
in  the  dusky  light  he  saw  the  Bubble 
Boy  backing  Jack  into  the  Concord 
wagon.  He  worked  like  an  old  hand, 
and  in  a  few  minutes  George's  father 
came  out  of  the  house  and  got  into  the 
wagon,  and  then  they  rode  off,  his  double 
driving. 

This  was  too  much  for  the  poor  boy. 
If  there  was  one  thing  he  liked  before  an 
other  it  was  a  ride  with  his  father,  and  at 
night  of  all  things.  He  cast  himself  upon 
the  bed,  and  sobbed  as  if  his  heart  would 
break.  What  a  wicked  boy  his  double 
was !  Here  he'd  offered  to  board  and 
keep  him  to  take  all  his  troubles  off  his 
shoulders,  and  he  was  taking  his  pleasures 
243 


THE  BUBBLE  BOY 

as  well.     Oh,  how  hungry  he  was  !     Cold 
chicken  would  taste  good. 

He  rose  from  the  bed,  and  walked  as 
noiselessly  as  he  could  down  the  attic 
stairs.  But  his  mother,  who  was  putting 
Cynthia  to  bed,  heard  him,  and  called  out 
in  an  alarmed  tone  : 

"  Who's  there  ?  " 

"  It's  me,"  said  George  in  a  weak  voice. 

"  You  back  so  soon  ?  Why,  what's  the 
matter  ?  "  seeing  he'd  been  crying.  "  Has 
anything  happened  to  your  father  ?  Tell 
me,  child !  " 

tc  I  didn't  go  with  papa,"  sobbed  George. 
"  That's  why  I've  been  crying." 

"  Why,  George,  I  saw  you  go,"  said 
his  mother. 

"  It  wasn't  me  ;  it  was  a  bubble  boy 
that  floated  in  this  afternoon." 

His  mother  looked  bewildered.  "  What's 
the  matter  with  you  ?  Are  you  crazy  ?  " 
said  she. 

244 


THE  BUBBLE  BOY 

^ 

At  this  moment  the  sound  of  wheels 
was  heard  in  the  yard,  and  George  said  : 
"  There  they  are.  They'll  be  in  in  a 
minute." 

In  less  than  a  minute  his  father  came 
in.  "  Oh,  here  you  are,"  he  said  to 
George.  "  You  ought  not  to  jump  out  of 
the  back  of  the  wagon  that  way  in  the 
dark.  I  stopped  and  called  to  you,  and 
you  didn't  answer,  and  I  thought  you  were 
hurt.  And  then  I  saw  you  running  to 
ward  the  house." 

"  That  wasn't  me  ;  that  was  the  Bubble 
Boy." 

His  father  didn't  notice  what  he  said. 
"  Where's  that  hen-book  ?  I  want  to 
show  your  mother  that  picture  of  the 
Wyandotte." 

"What  hen-book?"  asked  George, 
mystified. 

For  the  next  few  minutes  his  answers 
were  so  bewildering  to  both  parents  that 
245 


THE  BUBBLE  BOY 

they  finally    told   him    sharply  to    go    to 
bed. 

"  It  doesn't  do  to  keep  a  growing  boy 
up  late/'  said  his  father. 

As  for  the  double,  they  wouldn't  hear 
another  word  about  him. 

George  went  upstairs  by  way  of  the 
pantry,  and  appeased  his  appetite  some 
what.  When  he  entered  his  room,  he  half 
expected  to  see  his  double.  But,  as  we  all 
know,  bubble  boys  have  short  lives.  He 
looked  out  of  the  window.  A  silvery  moon 
was  riding  through  steamy  clouds,  and  he 
thought  he  saw  an  iridescent  bubble  float 
ing  by  its  side. 

"  I  guess  I'll  take  my  own  punishments 
and  my  own  pleasures  after  this,"  said  he 
as  he  took  a  bite  of  drumstick.  "  I  know 
I  don't  want  any  more  mean  old  doubles 
like  that  one." 


246 


THE     RABBITS'    EASTER 
EGGS 


AJSTIN  McKENZIEhadtwo  sis 
ters,  both  of  them  as  pretty  as 
Easter  lilies,  and  almost  as  white, 
which   was   strange,  as   they  lived  in   the 
country  and  spent  a  good  deal  of  time  out 
doors. 

Austin  had  spent  an  Easter  vacation  in 
the  city,  and  when  he  came  home,  he  gave 
the  girls  such  a  vivid  account  of  the  deco 
rated  eggs,  and  the  papier-mache  rabbits, 
and  all  the  other  Easter  favors  that  can  be 


249 


THE    RABBITS     EASTER    EGGS 

seen  in  the  shops,  that  they  were  wild  to 
have  him  decorate  some  eggs  for  them 
when  next  Easter  should  come. 

Mr.  McKenzie  owned  a  score  of  hens 
of  various  breeds,  and  Austin,  who  could 
draw  and  paint,  asked  him  whether  he 
could  have  all  the  eggs  that  were  laid  the 
week  before  Easter,  so  that  he  might  deco 
rate  them,  and  Mr.  McKenzie  readily 
consented,  as  he  was  proud  of  his  boy's 
talent. 

Austin  counted  on  about  a  hundred 
eggs;  but,  to  his  dismay,  the  hens  stopped 
laying  just  one  week  before  Easter.  Now, 
April  is  the  greatest  month  in  the  year  for 
eggs,  and  this  action  on  the  part  of  the 
hens  was  quite  unaccountable,  and  in  the 
minds  of  Marian  and  Sarah  quite  unpar 
donable. 

Austin  asked  whether  they  could  not 
buy  some  eggs ;  but  Mr.  Austin  was  op 
posed  to  this,  and  besides,  all  their  neigh- 


THE    RABBITS     EASTER    EGGS 

bors  had  their  regular  customers  for  eggs, 
who  took  all  that  were  laid. 

Austin  was  greatly  disappointed.  He 
had  a  good  deal  of  talent  in  drawing  and 
painting,  and  he  had  anticipated  making 
pretty  and  quaint  designs  on  the  eggs.  A 
hen  that  can  lay  and  won't  lay  should  be 
made  to  lay ;  but  it  takes  several  days  to 
do  this,  and  it  was  Good  Friday  before 
Austin  gave  up  all  hope  of  the  hens  begin 
ning,  and  then  it  was  quite  too  late  to  do 
anything  in  the  forcing  line. 

He  went  out  to  the  hen-house  to  feed 
them  early  Saturday  morning,  and  said  to 
them — he  had  a  way  of  talking  to  dumb 
beasts  as  if  they  could  understand  :  "  I 
don't  see  why  you  should  stop  laying  eggs 
just  at  this  time,  when  we  want  them  more 
than  ever." 

As  he  spoke  he  heard  a  rustling  in  the 
straw,  and  saw  two  pink  eyes  looking  at 
him.  Then  two  long  ears  were  cocked  at 


THE   RABBITS     EASTER   EGGS 

him,  and  a  rabbit  hopped  boldly  out  and 
laughed  at  him.  Yes,  actually  laughed  at 
him.  The  hens  did  not  seem  to  fear  this 
unusual  intruder  in  the  least.  In  fact, 
the  oldest  of  all  went  over  to  him,  and 
turning  her  head  to  one  side,  said  some 
thing  in  hen  language.  And  the  rabbit 
answered  in  Welsh,  which  is  the  language 
of  most  rabbits  in  this  country. 

Austin  thought  that  there  was  more  in 
this  than  met  his  eye  or  his  ear,  and  he 
went  out  of  the  hen-house  and  waited  out 
side  for  a  half  hour,  for  he  had  the  patience 
of  an  Indian.  At  the  end  of  that  time  he 
heard  a  hen  cackling,  and  knew  that  she 
had  laid  an  egg. 

"  Ah,  ha,  they've  begun  at  last,"  said 
he,  and  as  he  said  it  out  comes  Mr.  Cot 
tontail  with  an  egg  in  his  mouth,  and  hops 
off  across  the  meadow  to  the  strip  of 
woods  that  bounded  it  on  the  west. 

"  That's  where  they're  going,  is  it?  The 
252 


THE    RABBITS     EASTER    EGGS 

hens  are  supplying  the  rabbits  with  eggs, 
although  papa,  and  not  the  rabbits,  is  feed 
ing  them." 

He  was  about  to  go  into  the  hen-house 
when  he  saw  two  other  rabbits  come  out 
of  the  woods  and  hop  along  the  runway 
until  they  came  to  the  hen-house,  which 
they  entered  at  the  hens'  exit,  a  small 
hole  cut  in  the  west  end. 

Austin  stood  still  to  wait  further  devel 
opments.  He  noticed  that  each  rabbit 
bore  in  his  lips  a  mouthful  of  grass,  and 
it  struck  him  that  he  had  wronged  them ; 
that  they  were  paying  for  their  eggs  in 
grass. 

I  suppose  that  the  hens  thought  that 
the  grass  that  grew  in  the  woods  was  richer 
than  that  which  grew  in  their  yard.  Peo 
ple,  and  animals,  too,  always  prize  a  thing 
that  comes  from  afar  more  than  they  do 
something  that  they  can  pick  up  close  at 
hand.  That  paper-cutter  that  your  aunt 
253 


THE    RABBITS     EASTER    EGGS 

brought  from  Switzerland  does  not  cut 
the  pages  half  as  well  as  the  back  of 
the  fruit-knife  does,  and  yet  you  value  it 
more. 

The  rabbits  presumably  paid  cash — or 
grass — and  in  a  few  minutes  Austin  heard 
two  hens  cackle,  and  he  knew  that  two 
more  eggs  had  been  laid.  But  before  he 
could  enter  the  house  the  two  bunnies 
hopped  off,  one  with  a  white  Brown  Leg 
horn  egg,  and  the  other  with  a  brown 
White  Plymouth  Rock  egg.  Just  then 
he  saw  his  two  sisters  crossing  the  orchard. 
"  Come  here,"  he  said,  "  and  don't  make 
any  noise.  Funniest  thing  that  ever  hap 
pened." 

The  girls  came  tiptoeing  over  to  him 
with  the  exaggerated  steps  that  are  always 
thought  necessary  when  quiet  is  the  word, 
and  as  soon  as  they  were  come  to  him  he 
said  : 

"  I've  found  out  why  we  haven't  any 
254 


THE    RABBITS     EASTER    EGGS 

eggs.  The  rab — shh  !  Here  come  some 
more." 

He  pointed  as  he  spoke,  and  his  sister 
saw  four  rabbits  hopping  in  Indian  file 
from  the  woods  to  the  hen-house.  They 
did  not  seem  to  see  the  children,  or  maybe 
they  knew  that  they  had  no  violence  to 
fear  at  their  hands,  for  they  disappeared  in 
the  hen-house.  Then  ensued  another  wait, 
during  which  time  Austin  told  the  girls 
what  had  happened. 

Now  came  a  chorus  of  cackling,  in  which 
they  could  distinguish  four  parts  with  a 
solo  every  now  and  then.  The  four  parts 
were  taken  by  a  Silver  Wyandotte,  a  Buff 
Cochin,  a  White  Leghorn,  and  a  Black 
Spanish,  and  the  solo  was  sung  by  a  Light 
Brahma  rooster,  and  right  well  and  lustily 
he  sang  it. 

"  Aren't  you  going  to  get  them  ? "  asked 
Marian. 

"  Not  this  time.     Wait,"  said  Austin  ; 


THE    RABBITS     EASTER    EGGS 

and  as  he  was  several  years  older  than  his 
sisters,  they  waited.  A  moment  later  out 
hopped  the  four  rabbits  with  four  eggs  of 
different  sizes  and  colors,  but  all  equally 
good  for  Easter  decorating. 

"  Don't  they  look  dear  ?  "  said  Sarah, 
clasping  her  hands  unconsciously  and  look 
ing  "  dear  "  herself. 

"  What  do  you  suppose  they'll  do  with 
them — eat  them  ?  "  asked  Marian. 

"  Oh,  no,"  said  Austin,  with  a  little 
tincture  of  big  brotherisrru  "  They'll  paint 
pictures  on  them." 

The  girls  giggled  at  this,  and  Sarah 
said : 

"  But,  Austin,  I  suppose  they've  been 
taking  them  ever  since  the  eggs  fell  off." 

"  Fell  off  what  ?  "  asked  Austin,  teas- 
ingly. 

"  Oh,  you  know  what  I  mean.  I  think 
that  you  ought  to  stop  them  from  getting 
any  more.  I  think  the  hens  will  stop 


THE    RABBITS     EASTER    EGGS 

them  by  not  laying  any  more.  That's 
seven  already  this  morning,  and  there 
are  only  twenty  hens." 

"  Well,  they  must  be  getting  lazy, 
then,"  said  Marian,  "  if  seven  eggs  is  all 
they  feel  able  to  lay  so  near  Easter." 

"  Look,"  said  Sarah,  pointing  toward 
the  woods,  "  here  come  eight  rabbits,  and 
they  all  have  roots  in  their  mouths." 

"  They  are  certainly  buying  those  eggs," 
said  Austin.  "  I'm  not  going  to  stop 
them.  Say,  I  have  some  money  in  my 
bank,  and  I'll  go  down  town  and  buy 
some  case  eggs  this  evening.  They'll  do 
just  as  well  to  decorate.  And  I  won't 
disturb  the  rabbits  at  all.  Although,  I 
guess  this  crowd  will  be  fooled — they 
won't  get  any  eight  eggs  this  morning." 

"  Isn't  it  a  coincidence,"  said  Marian, 
"  that  rabbits  should  be  getting  eggs  just 
at  Easter  time  ?  " 

Before  anyone  could  answer  there  arose 

257 


THE   RABBITS'  EASTER   EGGS 

a  most  cheerful  din  inside — the  din  that 
announces  the  laying  of  eggs. 

"  I  guess  they  are  laying  twice,"  said 
Sarah. 

"  No,  hens  never  lay  twice  in  a  day," 
said  Marian.  It  was  not  very  long  since 
she  had  learned  it. 

Here  the  eight  rabbits  hopped  out  of  the 
house  and  bore  away  eight  nice  fresh  eggs. 

"  Well,  that's  fifteen.  Now  they've  all 
laid  except  five,"  said  Austin.  "I  wonder 
if  any  more  will  come.  I  believe  that  each 
rabbit  has  been  a  different  one." 

"  Of  course.  They  couldn't  all  be  the 
same,"  answered  Marian  with  a  gay  little 
laugh. 

"  Rabbits  can  count !  Here  come  five 
more^"  cried  Sarah.  And,  sure  enough, 
five  big  rabbits  came  hopping  along  and 
entered  the  hen-house. 

"  Wait  a  minute,"  said  Austin,  and  he 
ran  into  the  house.  He  came  out  in  a 
258 


THE   RABBITS'  EASTER   EGGS 

moment.  "  The  five  big  Black  Lang- 
shans  are  on  their  nests,  and  a  rabbit  is 
sitting  in  front  of  each  box/' 

Austin  had  barely  announced  this  when 
deep  cackles  from  the  Langshans  told  the 
children  that  the  eggs  were  ready  for  de 
livery. 

Out  and  off  hopped  the  five  rabbits 
with  five  enormous  eggs,  and  every  hen 
had  laid.  After  that,  although  the  rooster 
did  a  good  deal  of  talking  and  seemed  to 
be  congratulating  the  ladies  of  his  house 
hold  on  their  remarkable  record,  the  hens 
became  silent  and  devoted  themselves  to 
eating  the  grass  and  picking  at  insects  on 
the  roots  which  had  been  left  by  the  rab 
bits. 

"  Well,  if  I  hadn't  seen  that,  I  never 
would  have  believed  it,"  said  Marian. 

"  It  only  shows,"  said  Sarah,  "  that 
animals  are  more  intelligent  than  we  think 
them." 

159 


THE  RABBITS'  EASTER  EGGS 

"  But  it  doesn't  give  us  the  big  day's 
supply  of  eggs  for  decorating,*'  said  Aus 
tin,  ruefully. 

They  all  went  into  the  house  to  tell 
their  mother.  And  the  rabbits  busied 
themselves  in  a  way  that  would  have 
keenly  interested  the  children  if  they 
could  have  seen  them. 

As  I  have  indicated,  the  McKenzies 
were  kind  to  dumb  animals,  and  this  rather 
unusual  proceeding  on  the  part  of  the 
rabbits  and  the  hens  was  part  of  a  pro 
gramme  that  the  rabbits  originally  sug 
gested  and  the  butterflies  and  hens  had 
eagerly  seconded.  If  you  could  have 
been  near  the  rabbit-warrens  just  a  week 
previous,  you  would  have  heard  one  of  a 
cloud  of  butterflies  of  every  possible  hue 
saying  to  a  rabbit : 

"  We'll  gladly  do  it,  if  there  is  a  rain 
bow  before  Easter ;  but  you  can't  expect 
us  to  give  up  the  color  on  our  wings,  as 

a6o 


THE    RABBITS     EASTER   EGGS 

that  is  our  only  beauty.  But  if  there  is  a 
rainbow,  we'll  help  you  gladly,  as  we  can 
then  get  all  the  color  we  want ;  and  those 
children  are  certainly  worth  pleasing,  be 
cause  they  never  chase  us." 

What  it  meant  it  would  have  puzzled 
me  to  explain  at  that  time,  but  the  rabbit 
evidently  understood,  and  rising  upon  his 
hind  legs,  he  sniffed  the  air  and  looked  at 
the  clouds  in  a  weather-wise  way. 

But,  although  it  was  April  and  there 
were  plenty  of  showers,  there  were  no  rain 
bows  up  to  the  time  that  all  the  eggs  had 
been  gathered  by  the  rabbits,  and  old  Mr. 
Cottontail,  who  had  managed  affairs  so  far, 
said  to  his  wife  : 

"  I'm  afraid  we  can't  do  it  after  all.  To 
morrow  will  be  Easter." 

Along  about  five  o'clock  Saturday  after 
noon  there  came  up  a  heavy  shower  just 
as  Austin  was  about  saddling  Caesar  to  ride 
to  town,  and  he  was  disappointed  enough 
261 


THE   RABBITS*   EASTER   EGGS 

when  his  mother  said  that  he  could  not  go. 
However,  he  was  a  boy  who  could  bear 
disappointment  manfully ;  and  so,  instead 
of  pouting,  he  went  up  to  his  room,  and 
getting  out  a  lot  of  cards,  he  began  to 
paint  little  Easter  pictures,  to  give  to  the 
different  members  of  the  family  at  break 
fast  next  morning. 

But  Marian  and  Sarah  did  not  take  it 
quite  as  well. 

"  I  think  the  rain  is  just  horrid,  and  so 
are  the  rabbits,"  said  Sarah. 

"  Our  whole  Easter  will  be  spoiled/' 
said  Marian. 

"  Say,  girls,"  called  Austin  from  his 
room,  "  look  at  that  rainbow.  And  the 
rain  is  stopping.  I  can  go,  I  guess." 

The  girls  looked,  and  saw  the  largest 
and  most  vivid  rainbow  that  had  ever 
arched  itself  in  the  heavens.  And  while 
they  watched  the  glorious  colors,  two 
clouds  of  butterflies,  whose  hues  rivaled 
262 


THE   RABBITS'  EASTER   EGGS 

those  of  the  rainbow,  flew  from  its  two 
bases,  and  following  its  arch,  met  at  the 
top,  and  then  flew  from  it  to  the  western 
woods  and  disappeared  in  its  shadows. 

Austin  burst  into  the  room.  "  I  say, 
girls,  did  you  see  that  ?  " 

"Yes.    Wasn't  it  queer  ?"  said  Marian. 

"Wasn't  it  lovely?"  said  Sarah.  "How 
could  we  see  them  so  far  ?  They  seemed 
to  brush  the  rainbow  with  their  wings." 

"  Well,  we've  seen  enough  strange  and 
pretty  things  to-day  to  reconcile  us  to  the 
loss  of  the  Easter  eggs,"  continued  Sarah, 
as  her  eyes  watched  the  rapidly  fading 
rainbow. 

"Especially,  as  we've  gotten  along  with 
out  them  every  Easter  so  far,"  added 
Marian. 

"  Well,  we  won't  have  to  this  time," 
said  Austin.  "  I  know  mamma  will  let 
me  go  down,  now  that  it  has  stopped  rain- 

ing." 

163 


THE   RABBITS     EASTER   EGGS 

And  in  a  few  minutes  he  was  off  on  old 
Caesar,  and  the  girls  flew  to  their  mother 
to  see  if  she  could  help  them  make  some 
dyes  for  coloring  some  of  the  eggs. 

But,  although  Mrs.  McKenzie  was  gen 
erally  a  mine  of  suggestions  to  her  children 
when  they  were  in  a  quandary,  she  had 
never  done  any  dyeing,  and  did  not  know 
how  to  go  to  work  to  get  a  single  color 
except  by  using  blueing,  and  the  girls  did 
not  think  that  would  make  a  very  pretty 
shade  of  blue.  They  set  the  table  for  their 
mother,  and  then  they  put  on  their  rubbers 
and  went  out  to  get  some  early  wild 
flowers,  and  while  they  were  in  the  field 
they  saw  Austin  returning — eggless. 

"  It's  no  use,"  he  called  to  them.  "The 
fates  are  against  us.  They  were  all  out 
of  eggs  at  both  stores.  Expected  some 
more  this  evening,  but  I  couldn't  wait. 
We'll  have  to  get  along  without." 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  there  was  a 
264 


THE   RABBITS    EASTER   EGGS 

tear  in  Sarah's  eye,  and  another  one  was 
all  ready  to  roll  out  of  Marian's  eye ;  but 
Marian  threw  her  head  up,  and  Sarah  threw 
her  head  up,  the  tears  rolled  back,  and  the 
girls  went  on  picking  early  wild  flowers 
like  sensible  children. 


While  the  family  sat  at  breakfast  Easter 
morning  admiring  the  pretty  conceits  that 
Austin's  brush  had  created  on  cardboard, 
Mr.  Austin  noticed  a  neighbor  staring  in 
tently  at  their  front  doorway. 

"  Do  you  suppose  the  house  is  afire, 
Margaret  ?  "  said  he,  calling  Mrs.  Austin's 
attention  to  the  man,  whose  mouth  and 
eyes  were  wide  open. 

All  five  jumped  to  their  feet  and  ran  to 
the  front  door,  which  Mr.  Austin  opened. 

There  on  the  front  steps  and  extending 
down  the  path  to  the  gate,  sat  one  hundred 
rabbits,  and  each  rabbit  held  an  egg  in  his 


THE    RABBITS     EASTER    EGGS 

paws  as  a  squirrel  holds  a  nut.  But  such 
eggs! 

The  butterflies  had,  indeed,  been  to  the 
rainbow,  and  had  borrowed  colors  from  it; 
but  how  in  the  world  they  ever  decorated 
those  eggs  with  the  dazzling  hues  I  cannot 
tell.  Such  transcendently  beautiful  eggs 
you  or  I  never  saw  at  Easter  nor  at  any 
other  time. 

Austin  was  the  first  to  command  his 
tongue. 

"  Are  these  for  us  ?  "  said  he  to  Mr. 
Cottontail,  who  was  spokesman. 

The  rabbit  bowed  his  head  solemnly, 
and  the  ninety-nine  other  rabbits  bowed 
their  heads  too,  and  then  each  one  in  turn 
went  up  and  handed  an  egg  to  one  or  an 
other  of  the  children. 

"Quick,  get  the  clothes  basket!  "  said 
Mrs.  McKenzie  to  her  husband,  and  in 
truth  they  needed  it,  for  a  hundred  eggs 
take  a  good  deal  of  room. 

z66 


THE    RABBITS     EASTER   EGGS 

When  the  last  rabbit  had  handed  in  his 
egg,  they  formed  a  long  line  and  bowed 
respectfully  to  the  McKenzies.  Then 
each  rabbit  put  a  little  paw  on  his  heart, 
and  they  faced  about,  and  hopped  off 
around  the  house  and  away  to  the  woods, 
followed  by  admiring  and  amused  ejacula 
tions  from  the  McKenzies  and  the  neigh 
bor  who  had  joined  them.  As  the  rabbits 
passed  the  hen-house  the  rooster  crowed, 
and  all  the  hens  said  one  thing  or  another 
— in  their  own  language. 

But  those  eggs  !  If  you  can  imagine 
Jack  Frost's  finest  work  done  in  seven 
colors  on  the  ovals,  you  will  have  a  faint 
conception  of  their  beauty. 

But  what  appealed  more  than  anything 
to  tender-hearted  Sarah  was  the  fact  that 
the  rabbits  had  thought  enough  of  their 
human  friends  to  prepare  such  a  gorgeous 
Easter  surprise  for  them. 


267 


THE     TALE      OF     THE 
GOLDEN     EGG 


ALL  the  boys  in  Oakville  had  hen 
fever.  I  once  heard  a  little  boy 
say,  "  Hen  fever  is  something 
like  chicken  pox  and  something  like  scar 
let  fever,  but  it  lasts  longer  than  either," 
and  I  guess  he  was  right.  But  if  you  who 
are  reading  this  are  so  unfortunate  as  to  be 
a  city  boy  and  only  know  hens  as  the 
featherless  things  they  hang  up  by  their 
legs  in  the  poultry  stores,  I  can  tell  you 
that  hen  fever  is  very  delightful  while  it 


271 


THE   TALE   OF   THE   GOLDEN   EGG 

lasts,  for  it  means  the  enthusiastic  care  of 
hens — which  are  the  birds  that  lay  the  eggs 
of  commerce.  It  means  feeding  them  the 
right  food  and  rejoicing  in  their  cackling, 
which  is  their  way  of  saying,  "  Watch  me 
lay  an  egg;"  and  it  means  hunts  for  hid 
den  nests  with  maybe  a  dozen  eggs  in  them, 
and,  it  may  be,  a  dozen  fluffy  little  chick 
ens.  It  means  the  right  food  and  plenty 
of  water  for  them,  and  tucking  them  into 
bed  at  night  so  they  won't  catch  cold ;  and 
it  sometimes  means  enough  pocket  money 
from  the  sale  of  eggs  and  chickens  to 
buy  a  handsome  double-ripper  with  a  pic 
ture  of  Dewey  winning  out  at  Manila. 

So  you  see  that  hen  fever  doesn't  re 
quire  the  services  of  a  physician  ;  and  you 
can  catch  it  at  any  time  of  the  year,  al 
though  March  and  April  are  the  easiest 
months  in  which  to  get  it,  for  then  any  old 
hen  at  all  will  lay  eggs,  and  you  think  she's 
going  to  do  it  all  the  year  round,  and  you 


THE  TALE  OF  THE  GOLDEN   EGG 

get  your  father  to  buy  forty  of  them,  and 
the  first  thing  you  know  your  hens  are  all 
on  strike  and  you're  buying  your  eggs  at  a 
grocery  store.  And  that  sometimes  cures 
hen  fever.  But  it  also  shows  you  that 
you  didn't  have  the  right  brand  of  fever 
or  they  would  have  kept  on  laying. 

The  annual  Bangtown  fair  was  billed  to 
come  off  the  first  Tuesday  in  October,  and 
ten  of  the  Oakville  boys  had  entered  their 
hens  in  the  hope  of  winning  prizes.  Ab 
bott  Lyman  was  going  to  send  ten  black 
Leghorns,  and  Philip  Wendell  was  going 
to  ship  a  crate  of  white  Plymouth  Rocks, 
and  Beecher  Ward  was  going  to  exhibit 
three  black  Spanish  hens. 

But  poor  little  Bryant  Williams  felt 
quite  left  out  because  he  had  nothing  to 
send.  He  was  a  little  orphan  who  would 
have  had  hen  fever  in  a  minute  if  he  could 
have  bought  or  borrowed  any  hens,  but  it 
was  all  he  could  do  to  get  enough  clothes 
273 


THE   TALE   OF  THE  GOLDEN   EGG 

to  cover  him  and  sufficient  food  to  keep 
his  internal  machinery  going,  and  to  buy 
even  one  scrub  hen  would  have  overtaxed 
his  resources. 

I'm  rather  afraid  that  Abbott  Lyman 
crowed  a  little  over  Bryant.  Maybe  he  had 
caught  it  from  his  hens,  and  maybe  not; 
but  wherever  he  had  caught  it,  he  should 
have  dropped  it  instanter.  He  said,  in 
that  taunting  way  of  his  that  made  him  so 
unpopular  with  smaller  boys  and  got  him 
into  so  many  scrapes  with  bigger  ones, 
"If  I  was  so  poor  that  I  couldn't  enter  any 
fowls  at  the  fair,  I'd  go  jump  into  the 
Naugatuck." 

But  little  Bryant,  instead  of  making  an 
ugly  reply,  simply  turned  a  handspring 
and  went  down  the  road  to  help  Beecher 
Ward  knock  a  crate  together  for  his  Pekin 
ducks. 

On  the  way  to  Beecher's  house  he  came 
upon  an  old  woman  who  had  slipped  on  a 
274 


THE  TALE  OF  THE  GOLDEN  EGG 

slide  and  fallen.  She  had  dancing  black 
eyes  and  a  sugar-loaf  hat  and  long  straight 
hair,  and  her  nose  was  within  hailing  dis 
tance  of  her  chin,  and  she  looked  a  good 
deal  like  old  Mother  Hubbard  or  Mother 
Goose  or  one  of  the  other  mothers  of  nur 
sery  tales. 

Bryant  was  a  helpful  chap,  and  instead 
of  laughing  at  the  old  woman,  as  Abbott 
would  have  done,  he  stopped  and  said : 
"  Have  you  hurt  yourself?  Can  I  help 
you  ? " 

"  Indeed  you  can,  sonny.  I  think  I've 
cracked  my  hip.  I  didn't  see  the  ice,  and 
the  first  thing  I  did  see  was  stars." 

Bryant  laughed.  Here  was  an  old 
woman  who  could  make  a  joke  of  her 
trouble,  and  he  was  the  better  pleased  to 
help  her,  for  he  was  always  joking  himself. 
He  put  his  arm  around  her,  and  finding 
her  a  bag  of  bones,  he  lifted  her  with  no 
trouble  at  all. 

275 


THE  TALE  OF  THE  GOLDEN  EGG 

"  Indeed,  but  you're  a  good  lad.  Once 
I'm  on  my  feet  I'm  good  for  all  day,  but 
when  I  tumble — which  I  don't  often  do — 
I'm  as  badly  off  as  a  turtle  on  its  back." 

"  Are  you  going  far  ?  "  said  Bryant. 
"  Can't  I  carry  your  basket  ?  " 

"  Thank  you  kindly  if  you  will,"  said 
the  old  woman.  "  My  hip  pains  me  a 
good  deal.  I  suppose  you'll  be  going  to 
the  Bangtown  fair  and  exhibiting  some 
chickens,  like  the  other  boys." 

"  No,  indeed,"  said  Bryant,  ruefully. 
"  I  have  just  enough  money  to  get  in 
myself,  and  I  made  that  helping  Beecher 
Ward  take  care  of  his  ducks.  I  wish  I 
could  enter  some  hens,  for  I  love  them, 
and  would  like  to  win  a  prize." 

"  Well,  it's  a  lucky  thing  that  you  met 
me  and  that  I  fell,  for  in  my  basket 
I  have  the  hen  that  laid  the  golden  egg 
and  I  will  let  you  have  her  all  day  to 
morrow,  if  you  will  promise  to  return  her 
276 


THE  TALE  OF  THE  GOLDEN  EGG 

to  me  next  day.  I  live  on  Black  Moun 
tain." 

And  then  Bryant  knew  who  it  was  that 
he  had  befriended — none  other  than  the 
witch  woman  of  Watertown,  who  in  win 
ter  lived  in  Watertown,  but  in  summer 
lived  in  a  charcoal-burner's  abandoned 
hut  on  the  Mountain. 

"  You  can  win  a  prize  with  the  hen,  and 
you  can  sell  the  golden  egg  which  she 
will  lay  at  ten  in  the  morning,  for  a  great 
deal  of  money,  and  you  can  show  her  in  a 
tent  and  charge  so  much  admission." 

Did  ever  a  boy  find  fortune  knocking 
so  many  times  on  his  door  at  once  ?  His 
eyes  filled  with  tears,  and  he  grasped  the 
old  woman's  hand  and  thanked  her  with 
all  the  fervor  of  a  warm  nature. 

"  I  must  go  and  see  about  getting  a 
tent  at  once,"  said  Bryant. 

"  Now  I  like  that,"  said  the  old  witch. 
"  Some  boys  would  have  expected  me  to 
277 


THE  TALE  OF  THE   GOLDEN   EGG 

furnish  tent  and  all  myself,  but  I  see  that 
you  are  willing  to  help  yourself.  Go  to 
Lowell  Russell,  and  tell  him  I  sent  you, 
and  he  will  fix  you  out.  Here,  take  the 
hen  along;  but  be  sure  that  no  one  steals 
her,  or  she  and  the  thief  will  disappear 
entirely." 

Bryant  promised,  and  ran  ofF  with  the 
basket.  While  he  was  waiting  for  Mrs. 
Russell  to  open  the  door,  he  lifted  the 
cover  pf  the  basket  and  looked  in.  There 
sat  a  quiet-looking  hen  of  a  bright  golden 
color.  Her  comb  was  as  red  as  blood, 
and  she  looked  exactly  as  if  laying  golden 
eggs  was  a  good  thing  for  her  health, 
which  it  undoubtedly  was,  for  think  how 
many  years  it  is  since  she  was  first  discov 
ered  ! 

Bryant  told  his  errand  to  Mrs.  Russell, 
and  she  told  him  that  her  husband,  who 
was  vice-president  of  the  Bangtown  Fair 
Association,  had  a  tent  that  was  to  have 


THE  TALE  OF  THE  GOLDEN   EGG 

been  used  by  a  man  with  a  five-headed 
calf,  but  the  calf  had  lost  four  of  its  heads 
in  a  railroad  accident  and  was  now  no 
better  than  any  calf,  so  the  man  didn't 
need  the  tent.  And  then  Mr.  Russell 
came  in,  and  proved  to  be  kindness  itself. 
Next  morning  the  fair  opened,  and  it 
was  like  all  the  country  fairs  that  were 
ever  held.  And  if  you  never  attended 
one,  I  can  tell  you  that  the  chief  thing  to 
be  seen  there  is  the  people — people  who 
have  come  afoot  and  on  horseback,  on 
wheels  and  between  wheels,  and  some 
who  would  have  come  in  balloons  rather 
than  miss  coming.  There  is  one  big  tent 
and  a  lot  of  smaller  ones,  and  there  are 
men  who  sell  candy  and  oysters  and  soda 
and  whips.  The  whip-men  are  really 
worth  while.  They  sell  half  a  dozen 
whips,  each  one  worth  a  dollar,  and  charge 
a  dollar  for  the  lot  and  still  make  money. 
Now  that  ought  to  make  a  good  problem 
279 


THE  TALE  OF  THE   GOLDEN   EGG 

in  arithmetic.  If  one  whip  is  worth  one 
dollar,  and  a  man  sells  six  such  whips  for 
a  dollar  and  makes  money  on  the  sale, 
how  much  does  he  make?  Do  it  in  long 
division.  Or  maybe  fractions  would  be 
better.  But  I'm  sure  I  don't  know  how 
the  man  does  it. 

The  poultry  show  was  a  fine  one ;  not 
only  all  the  boys,  but  the  farmers,  for  miles 
around  had  entered  birds.  But  Bryant 
took  first  prize  as  a  matter  of  course.  A 
hen  that  lays  golden  eggs  is  worth  any 
number  of  hens  with  silver  feathers. 

Bryant  was  kept  busy  taking  in  the 
nickels  that  the  people  paid  to  go  in  and 
see  the  hen,  in  a  parrot  cage  loaned  by 
Mrs.  Ward.  Mr.  Russell  had  painted  a 
beautiful  picture  of  a  hen  at  least  two  feet 
high  and  with  two  high  feet,  and  the  tent 
was  naturally  a  magnet  of  attraction. 

Of  course  the  biggest  crowd  was  in  the 
tent  at  ten  o'clock,  when  the  hen  was  ad- 
280 


THE  TALE   OF  THE  GOLDEN   EGG 

vertised    to   lay  the  egg.     The  tent   had 
been  full  before  that,  but  there's  always 
room  for  more  people  in  a  crowd.     Those 
people  who  happened  to  be  in  the   ten 
when  the  egg  was  laid   had  something  t 
talk  about  for  the  rest  of  their  lives,  and  I 
dare  say,  if  you  go  up  to  Oakville,  you'll 
find    persons    who   saw    the    whole    pro 
ceeding. 

At  ten  sharp  the  egg  appeared,  and  the 
hen  began  to  cackle  a  silvery  lay.  Mr. 
Russell,  who  stood  by  Bryant  to  see  fair 
play,  held  the  egg  up,  and  told  the  crowd 
that  it  was  probably  worth  $300  and  any 
farmer  could  have  it  for  that  price  spot 
cash.  While  the  crowd  was  laughing  at 
this,  for  people  up  Oakville  way  don't 
carry  many  three-hundred-dollar  bills 
around  loose  in  their  clothes,  a  queer  thing 
happened. 

One  of  the  men  who  ran   a  wheel  of 
fortune — the  kind  where  you  pay  ten  cents 
281 


THE  TALE   OF  THE  GOLDEN   EGG 

and  are  sure  to  get  an  article  worth  a  tenth 
of  a  cent — no  blanks — thought  that  a  hen 
that  laid  golden  eggs  laid  over  any  fortune 
wheel  in  the  country ;  so  he  told  his  pal 
that  he  was  going  to  steal  the  hen. 

He  was  standing  on  the  other  side  of 
the  hen,  and  while  the  crowd  was  intent  on 
the  glistening  egg,  he  seized  the  enchanted 
fowl  and  burst  through  the  crowd  and  out 
of  the  tent  as  quick  as  winking.  The 
farmers  followed  him, crying,  "Stop, thief!" 
but  they  had  not  run  ten  feet  when  a  re 
markable  thing  happened. 

That  man  and  the  hen  disappeared  as 
if  they  had  been  swallowed  up.  There 
was  no  place  where  the  man  could  have 
hidden.  He  had  simply  vanished  because 
he  stole  the  hen. 

And  neither  the  hen  nor  the  man  has  been 
seen  from  that  day  to  this,  although  it  was 
away  back  in  October.  The  old  witch's 
prediction  had  come  true.  I  dare  say  that 


THE  TALE   OF  THE   GOLDEN   EGG 

she  has  the  hen  ;  but  who  has  the  man,  I 
don't  know.     And  I  don't  care  much. 

As  for  Bryant,  he  sold  the  egg  to  a 
banker  in  Waterbury  for  $400,  and  put 
the  money  in  the  savings  bank ;  and  he 
bought  some  blooded  Wyandotte  hens 
with  the  gate-money  he  took  in,  and  now 
he  has  one  of  the  best  poultry  farms  in  the 
whole  state  of  Connecticut. 


THE  BOY  WHO  REQUIRED 
WINDING 


YOU    boys  who  are  wound    up   to 
run     through  a  whole    lifetime, 
and  whose  machinery  so  seldom 
gets  out  of  order — that  is,  if  you  are  out 
of  doors  a  good  deal,  and    don't  spend 
your    time    reading    improbable    tales — 
ought    to    be    able  to  appreciate   the  sad 
case  of  Jimmy  Whortleberry  of  Winches 
ter,  Massachusetts. 

Jimmy  looked  and  acted  and  felt  like 
other  boys,  with  one  exception.      He  had 
287 


THE     BOY     WHO     REQUIRED    WINDING 

to  be  wound  up  like  a  clock  every  day. 
Just  at  the  back  of  his  neck  there  was  a 
little  keyhole,  and  he  was  wound  up  with 
a  silver  key  that  fitted  into  it. 

It's  no  use  for  you  to  ask  me  to  ex 
plain  why,  or  how,  or  anything  else.  Some 
things  have  to  be  taken  on  trust.  If  you 
don't  believe  this  story,  the  first  thing  I'll 
hear  is  that  you  haven't  believed  the  oth 
ers,  and  then  what  would  become  of  my 
confidence  in  myself? 

Jimmy  had  a  very  remarkable  mother. 
She  was  always  thinking  of  Jimmy's 
comfort  and  Jimmy's  pleasure,  and  she 
was  so  kind  to  him  that  he  actually  loved 
her. 

Now  a  great  many  mothers  have  to  do 
a  good  deal  for  their  boys.  They  have  to 
remember  where  the  cap  was  thrown 
when  the  boy  came  home  from  his  play ; 
they  have  to  know  where  he  left  his 
skates  and  what  became  of  his  top;  but  I 
288 


THE     BOY    WHO     REQUIRED    WINDING 

never  knew  of  any  other  mother  who  had 
to  remember  to  wind  her  son  up  every 
morning  before  breakfast.  You  see  the 
keyhole  being  in  the  back  of  his  neck, 
Jimmy  couldn't  reach  it  himself.  But  his 
mother  was  only  too  glad  to  keep  the  boy 
going,  for  he  was  such  a  cheery  little  lad ; 
up  to  mischief  and  dreadfully  naughty 
sometimes,  but  well  worth  winding  up  for 
all  that. 

It  was  the  funniest  performance,  his 
winding-up.  I  was  there  on  a  visit  once, 
and  I  saw  Mrs.  Whortleberry  wind  him. 
She  put  the  pretty  silver  key  into  his 
neck  and  began  to  turn  it,  and  the  blood 
ran  through  his  veins  with  a  sweet  crink 
ling  noise  that  sounded  like  music-boxes 
miles  and  miles  away.  Jimmy  always 
liked  to  be  wound  up.  It  was  like  taking 
a  tonic.  He  would  run  and  jump  and 
sing  gaily  and  act  for  all  the  world  as  if  he 
had  been  charged  with  electricity. 
289 


THE     BOY     WHO     REQUIRED     WINDING 

Not  half  the  boys  in  Winchester  who 
played  with  Jimmy  knew  that  he  had  to 
be  wound  up,  for  he  was  just  as  natural  as 
any  boy,  and  could  climb  and  skate  and 
wrestle  with  the  best  of  them. 

One  day  the  boys  got  up  a  walking  race. 
In  this  they  were  aided  and  abetted  by 
old  Mr.  Dixon.  They  were  to  walk  from 
Winchester  to  Arlington  Center  and  back 
again  for  a  silver  medal  that  Mr.  Dixon 
had  promised  to  the  winner.  Old  Mr. 
Dixon  is  a  silver-haired  gentleman  whom 
all  the  boys  like  because  he  is  still  a  good 
deal  of  a  boy  himself,  in  spite  of  his  sev 
enty  years. 

"  I  think  that  Jimmy  will  win  if  he 
doesn't  run  down,"  said  Mr.  Whortle 
berry. 

"  Run  down  indeed,"  said  Mr.  Dixon, 
hotly.  "  Jimmy  won't  run  down  when 
he  knows  it  is  a  walking  match.  He'll 
win  fair,  you  may  depend  upon  it."  From 

ago 


THE     BOY    WHO     REQUIRED    WINDING 

which  it  will  be  seen  that  Jimmy  was  a 
favorite  with  the  old  man. 

The  race  was  to  be  walked  on  a  Saturday. 
It  so  happened  that,  the  night  before,  Mrs. 
Whortleberry  was  taken  ill  with  an  attack 
of  grip,  and  in  the  morning  she  was  too 
sick  to  rise. 

She  told  the  maid  to  wind  Jimmy,  but 
the  maid  was  a  rather  feather-brained  crea 
ture  and  forgot  all  about  it,  and  as  for 
Jimmy,  he  was  so  full  of  the  race  that  he 
never  noticed  that  he  had  not  been  wound. 
Of  course,  just  as  it  is  with  clocks,  he 
could  run  several  hours  overtime.  So  he 
was  able  to  go  down  to  breakfast,  and 
then  run  in  and  kiss  his  mother  good-bye, 
and  tell  her  that  he  was  sorry  that  she  was 
too  sick  to  come  and  see  the  start. 

Just  as   he   was  leaving  the   room   she 

called  out,  "  Are  you  wound  up,  Jimmy  ?  " 

But  he  was  half  way  downstairs  by  that 

time,   and    didn't  hear  her.     He   put  on 

291 


THE     BOY    WHO     REQUIRED    WINDING 

his  cap,  and  started  off  at  a  dog  trot  for 
Mr.  Dixon's  house,  for  that  was  to  be  the 
meeting-place  for  the  contestants. 

There  were  Chelsea  Concord  and  Dor 
chester  Medford  and  Elgin  Waltham  and 
Somerville  Newton  and  his  brother,  Cen 
ter  Newton. 

Old  Mr.  Dixon  was  in  tip-top  spirits, 
and  gave  each  of  the  boys  an  orange. 
The  start  was  to  be  made  from  the  Win 
chester  library,  and  the  course  was  to  be 
along  the  line  of  the  trolley  road  to  Arling 
ton,  turning  at  the  railroad  station  and 
coming  back  over  the  same  route. 

Jimmy  felt  unusually  buoyant.  He 
bounded  around  until  Mr.  Dixon  said  : 

"  Boy,  if  you'll  save  some  of  that  en 
ergy  for  the  race,  I  haven't  a  doubt  but 
you'll  win  the  medal." 

Elgin  Waltham  knew  that  Jimmy  had 
to  be  wound  up,  and  he  said  :  "  Did  they 
wind  you  extra  tight,  Jimmy  ?  " 


THE     BOY    WHO     REQUIRED    WINDING 

Jimmy's  face  went  white  as  it  struck 
him  that  he  had  not  been  wound  at  all ; 
but  boylike,  he  thought  he'd  probably  get 
through  all  right,  so  he  said  nothing. 
But  he  stopped  jumping,  and  said:  "  Let's 
hurry  up  and  get  to  the  library." 

There  was  quite  a  crowd  of  Winchester 
people  at  the  library,  for  the  local  paper 
had  contained  a  notice  of  the  coming  race, 
and  as  it  was  Saturday  nobody  in  town 
had  anything  to  do.  That  is,  nobody 
who  counts  for  anything.  I  believe  some 
of  the  grown-ups  did  have  some  work  to 
attend  to  ;  but,  after  all,  what  are  grown 
ups  ?  Only  children  who  have  outlived 
their  usefulness.  You'll  have  great  times 
when  you  grow  up,  and  some  of  you  won't 
regret  that  you  are  no  longer  children;  but 
I  tell  you  that  when  a  fellow  is  a  boy, 
everything  is  fresh  and  new,  and  he 
doesn't  know  it  all,  even  if  he  sometimes 
thinks  he  does.  When  he  grows  up  he 

293 


THE     BOY    WHO     REQUIRED    WINDING 

doesn't  know  it  all  either,  but  he  certainly 
does  know  that  he  was  awfully  lucky  to 
have  had  a  boyhood,  and  the  more  he 
keeps  his  memory  on  it  the  better  time 
he  will  have  right  up  to  the  end  of  the 
chapter. 

At  ten  o'clock  old  Mr.  Dixon  started 
them  off.  It  was  to  be  a  square  heel  and 
toe  walk,  and  for  a  block  they  kept  pretty 
close  together.  Then  Jimmy  and  Elgin 
began  to  walk  away  from  the  others,  and 
it  began  to  look  as  if  it  were  going  to  lie 
between  them.  But  it's  a  long  way  to 
Arlington,  and  some  of  the  boys  were  re 
serving  their  force  for  the  end  of  the  con 
test  ;  so  there  was  hope  even  for  plodding 
Dorchester  Medford,  who  at  the  end  of 
the  first  mile  was  two  blocks  in  the  rear  of 
the  procession. 

Mr.  Dixon  had  hired  a  wagon,  and  he 
rode  along  cheering  the  boys  and  urging 
them  to  do  their  best. 
294 


THE     BOY    WHO     REQUIRED    WINDING 

"  Say,  this  is  going  to  be  dead  easy," 
said  Jimmy.  "  It  lies  between  me  and 
you,  and  I  bet  I'll  win."  He  and  Elgin 
were  neck  and  neck. 

"  You'll  have  to  take  an  electric  to  do 
it,  then,"  said  Elgin,  with  spirit.  "Anyhow, 
a  boy  that's  wound  up  ought  to  go  faster 
than  a  plain  every-day  boy.  I  don't  think 
it  was  fair  to  let  you  in." 

Again  Jimmy's  heart  sank  What  if 
he  should  run  down  ?  He  felt  all  right ; 
but  he  knew  that,  when  he  stopped,  he'd 
stop  all  at  once  and  without  any  warning. 

"  Don't  talk,  walk,"  said  he  shortly,  and 
pegged  away,  his  lithe  little  legs  swinging 
back  and  forth  with  the  regularity  of  pis 
ton  rods. 

When  they  reached  Arlington,  Med- 
ford  had  crept  up  to  fourth  place,  and 
Somerville  Newton  was  neck  and  neck 
with  Elgin  ;  but  Jimmy  had  gained  the 
lead,  and  was  steadily  increasing  it. 
295 


THE     BOY    WHO     REQUIRED    WINDING 

Across  the  tracks  they  went  and  around 
the  station  and  back  across  the  tracks,  old 
Mr.  Dixon  cheering  lustily  and  growing 
almost  apoplectic  with  his  exertions. 

"  It's  Jimmy's  race,"  he  shouted,  and 
any  one  could  tell  that  he  was  glad.  Well, 
Jimmy  was  a  general  favorite,  and  next  to 
winning  it  himself,  I  guess  every  boy  would 
rather  have  seen  Jimmy  win  it  than  any 
one  else. 

The  pace  began  to  tell  on  them  all  on 
the  way  back ;  but  they  were  game  lads, 
and  while  the  old  gentleman  rode  along  as 
pacemaker,  they  would  not  have  given  up 
if  the  way  had  been  ten  times  as  long. 
They  were  all  Massachusetts  boys,  and 
there  are  no  boys  to  beat  those  unless  it 
is  the  boys  of  the  rest  of  the  United 
States. 

They  were  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of 
the  home  stretch  when  Jimmy  began  to 
slacken  his  pace.     This  encouraged  Med- 
296 


THE     BOY     WHO     REQUIRED    WINDING 

ford,  who  had  been  gradually  working  his 
way  up  in  the  procession,  and  he  passed 
Somerville,  who  had  long  ago  distanced 
Elgin,  and  steadily  advanced  until  he  was 
within  a  rod  of  Jimmy.  It  had  been  a 
remarkably  close  race,  and  no  one  had 
dropped  out. 

You  should  have  seen  Mr.  Dixon's 
face  when  he  saw  his  favorite  losing  ground. 
As  for  Elgin,  he  was  so  encouraged  that 
he  broke  into  a  run  and,  of  course,  lost  his 
chance  of  winning. 

For  one  brief  moment  Jimmy  thought 
that  he  had  run  down;  but  when  he  real 
ized  that  he  couldn't  move  a  step  after  the 
machinery  had  stopped,  he  gave  a  spurt 
and  increased  his  lead  by  three  feet. 
There  was  now  just  an  eighth  of  a  mile 
left,  and  the  race  looked  to  be  Jimmy's,  for 
Medford  was  walking  his  prettiest  and 
couldn't  gain  an  inch  on  the  leader. 

The  beautiful  building  of  the  Winches- 
297 


THE     BOY     WHO     REQUIRED    WINDING 

ter  library  is  now  in  sight.  A  crowd  of 
Winchester's  best  citizens  are  standing 
there,  waving  flags  and  cheering.  Jimmy's 
father  is  among  the  number.  Jimmy  sees 
him,  and  wishes  that  his  mother  might  be 
there,  too. 

Five  hundred  feet  more  and  Jimmy 
will  be  champion. 

But  the  mechanism  had  reached  its  limit 
of  running.  The  maid  had  lost  the  race 
for  him  because  she  had  forgotten  to  wind 
him.  Down  in  the  road  he  dropped.  His 
arms  moved  spasmodically  once  or  twice, 
his  legs  kicked  a  little,  and  he  lay  an  inert 
mass  on  the  macadam. 

And  then  Medford  did  a  very  noble 
thing.  Disdaining  the  fact  that  it  was  now 
his  race,  he  dropped  out,  and  stooped  to 
pick  Jimmy  up,  and  Somerville  Newton 
walked  in  over  the  line  and  won  the  medal, 
amid  the  perfunctory  cheers  of  the  Win- 
chesterians. 

298 


THE     BOY     WHO     REQUIRED    WINDING 

A  doctor  ran  up  to  Jimmy.  But  Elgin 
Waltham  said,  "  You're  not  what  he 
wants;  he  wants  the  key." 

The  doctor  thought  he  was  insane;  but 
Elgin  started  for  Jimmy's  house  to  get 
the  key,  and  ran  plump  into  Mr.  Whortle 
berry. 

"  The  key,  the  key,"  he  gasped. 

Jimmy's  father  had  seen  his  son  fall,  and 
like  every  other  member  of  the  Whortle 
berry  family,  he  carried  a  key  that  would 
fit  the  lad's  neck.  He  ran  to  the  boy, 
and  said  to  the  doctor  :  "  I  am  his  father. 
He  only  needs  winding." 

That  doctor  was  the  most  astonished 
physician  in  eastern  Massachusetts,  but 
he  said  nothing.  The  bystanders  saw  Mr. 
Whortleberry  insert  the  key,  and  then 
they  heard  a  fain*  and  musical  sound, 
which,  as  I  have  said,  was  Jimmy's  blood 
coursing  through  his  veins,  and  then  the 
boy's  legs  began  to  work  back  and  forth 
299 


THE     BOY    WHO     REQUIRED    WINDING 

and  his  arms  to  pump,  and  he  rose  to  his 
feet  and  went  on  with  the  race. 

"Jimmy  boy,"  said  his  father,  sadly, 
<c  the  race  is  over.  It  would  have  been 
yours  if  only  you  had  been  wound  up." 

Poor  Jimmy  realized  then  what  had 
happened,  and  being  a  boy,  even  if  he  did 
have  mechanism  inside  of  him  instead  of 
vitals,  he  burst  into  tears. 

And  then  occurred  a  pretty  scene. 

Somerville  Newton  went  up  to  Mr. 
Dixon,  who  was  hastening  to  shake  hands 
with  Jimmy,  and  said  in  a  loud  voice 
so  that  all  could  hear :  "  I  don't  think  we 
ought  to  call  this  a  race.  If  I'd  known 
Jimmy  wasn't  wound  up,  I'd  never  have 
entered.  Say  we  have  it  again  next  Satur 
day." 

"  Hooray,"  shouted  all  the  boys,  in 
cluding  old  Mr.  Dixon. 


THE    BOY    WHO    TURNED 
BOOKS    INTO   FOOD 


HIS  name  was  John  S.  Smith,  and 
he  lived  in  a  little  village  among 
the  Berkshires,  near  Stockbridge. 
I'm  not  going  to  tell  just  where,  or  you'd 
all  be  writing   letters   to    him   asking  him 
how  he   did   it,  and    he   hates   to   answer 
letters. 

John  Smith  was  nine  years  old  on  one 
of  his  birthdays.  He  had  also  been  eight 
and  seven  and  a  whole  lot  of  other  num 
bers,  but  it  was  when  he  was  nine  that  he 


3°3 


THE  BOY          WHO          TURNED 

first  discovered  his  peculiar  gift.  He  was 
sitting  in  the  kitchen  reading,  while  Kate, 
the  hired  girl,  was  making  tomato  ketchup. 
Well,  you  know  how  hungry  the  smell  of 
that  good  condiment  makes  a  fellow,  and 
John,  who  had  not  eaten  a  mouthful  since 
breakfast — and  it  was  now  nearly  nine 
o'clock  A.  M. — was  naturally  ravenous. 
He  held  his  book  in  his  two  hands,  and 
said  to  Kate,  "  I  wish  I  had  something 
good  to  eat/*  Then  he  felt  something 
soft  in  his  hands,  and  lo  and  behold  !  his 
book  was  a  cake.  He  didn't  stop  to  think 
of  the  consequences,  but  he  just  ate  it,  and 
it  was  "  lickin'  good,'*  as  his  Aunt  Penel 
ope  would  have  said.  But  after  he  had 
finished  it,  he  wanted  to  read  again  about 
the  man  who  wanted  to  shiver  ;  for  it  was 
Grimm's  Fairy  Tales  he  had  been  reading. 
But  he  couldn't  do  it,  for  the  book  was  in 
his  little  stomach.  Kate  was  astonished 
to  think  he  could  turn  it  into  cake.  She 

3°4 


BOOKS  INTO  FOOD 

was  not  much  of  a  reader  herself,  and 
she  hated  baking.  "  Land  sakes  !"  she 
said,  "if  I  thought  I  could  get  rid  of 
baking  by  turning  your  pa's  books  into 
bread  and  cake,  I'd  never  light  the  oven 
again." 

"  I  don't  suppose  you  can,"  said  John, 
"but  I  guess  I  can." 

"  Well,  try  it,"  said  Kate. 
John's  father  was  a  minister,  and  he  had 
two  or  three  hundred  theological  books  in 
his  study.  He  was  not  at  home  that 
morning,  having  gone  to  Pittsfield  to  at 
tend  some  convention  or  other.  So  John 
and  Kate  went  into  his  study,  and  John 
said  to  her,  "  What  do  you  need  ?  " 

"  Well,"  said  she,  "  I  was  going  to  bake 
bread  this  morning  as  soon  as  the  ketchup 
was  done.  You  might  make  me  a  large 
loaf  of  bread." 

"  What  book'll  I  take  ?  "  asked  John. 
"  Oh,  any  book.     They  all  look  about 


THE  BOY          WHO  TURNED 

alike.     He'll    never    miss    it,    he    has    so 
many." 

So  John  reached  up  and  took  down 
Fox's  Book  of  Martyrs.  He  held  it  in 
one  hand,  and  said  :  "  I  wish  this  was  a 
loaf  of  bread."  And  then  a  remarkable 
thing  happened.  Both  John  and  Kate 
were  surprised  at  it.  The  book  still  con 
tinued  to  be  a  book. 

"  Why,  that's  funny,"  said  John.  «  I 
thought  1  had  the  power."  He  grabbed 
it  in  both-  hands,  and  again  said,  "  I  wish 
this  was  a  loaf  of  bread  " ;  and  this  time  it 
became  a  warm,  fresh  loaf.  Kate  was 
delighted.  So  was  John.  What  boy 
wouldn't  be  ? 

It  was  such  a  large  loaf  that  Kate 
wouldn't  need  another  for  three  days. 
They  had  it  for  dinner,  and  Mrs.  Smith 
complained  that  it  was  heavy ;  but  what 
could  you  expect  ?  You  can't  make  light 
bread  out  of  heavy  materials. 
306 


BOOKS  INTO  FOOD 

After  that,  at  every  "  baking,"  John 
converted  a  theological  work  into  bread 
for  the  family,  which  was  what  his  father 
had  been  doing  for  many  years,  although 
not  so  directly.  But  after  a  while  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Smith  noticed  that  his  library  was 
growing  beautifully  less,  and  as  he  never 
loaned  his  books,  he  wondered  thereat. 
At  last,  one  Saturday,  after  completing  his 
sermon,  he  lay  down  upon  the  sofa  to 
take  a  nap  ;  but  he  was  awakened  by  hear 
ing  light  footsteps.  Through  half-closed 
lids  he  saw  his  son  enter  the  room  and 
take  down  a  copy  of  "  The  Growth  of 
Congregationalism  in  New  England  "  and 
make  a  loaf  out  of  it ;  and  as  he  was  a 
quick-witted  man,  he  realized  what  had 
become  of  his  library,  and  also  fathomed 
the  cause  of  the  late  heavy  bread.  He 
reprimanded  John  severely  until  the  boy 
told  him  that  he  had  only  done  it  to  ease 
Kate's  labors,  and  then  the  old  gentleman 
307 


THE  BOY          WHO          TURNED 

made  her  cease  her  labors  entirely  and  re 
tire  to  her  own  home  for  an  indefinite  rest. 
So  she  learned  that  a  loaf  has  to  be  paid  for 
sooner  or  later. 

But  although  John  never  took  any  more 
books  to  turn  into  bread,  he  often  amused 
himself  by  making  pumpkins  out  of  rocks 
and  candy  out  of  twigs;  and  when  the  older 
boys  and  girls  of  the  village  went  on  an 
excursion  to  Bash  Bish  Falls,  they  always 
took  the  little  fellow  along,  as  it  saved  the 
bother  of  putting  up  lunch.  He  made 
lovely  chicken  sandwiches  out  of  moss. 

One  day  the  Rev.  Mr.  Smith,  his  wife, 
and  John  went  down  to  New  York  to  see 
the  sights,  and  among  the  places  that  they 
visited  was  Central  Park.  John  was  very 
much  interested  in  the  ancient  pottery  and 
the  mummies  and  things  that  he  saw  in 
the  Metropolitan  Museum.  But  as  most 
of  them  were  under  glass,  he  did  not  do 
any  damage,  as  he  might  have  done  if  he 
308 


BOOKS  INTO  FOOD 

had  suddenly  become  hungry  and  turned 
an  Egyptian  mummy  into  a  Welsh  rabbit 
or  a  Roman  coin  into  a  Neapolitan  ice. 
His  father  was  a  little  nervous,  however, 
and  he  breathed  a  sigh  of  relief  when  they 
got  out  safely. 

On  the  way  over  to  the  Monkey  House 
John  saw  the  great  obelisk  that  was  brought 
from  Egypt  a  few  years  ago  and  set  up  in 
the  Park.  He  said  to  his  father : 

"  Oh,  papa,  that's  older  than  you  or  I, 
or  even  Aunt  Penelope,  isn't  it  ?  " 

"Yes,  my  son,"  said  his  father,  and 
then  he  told  him  a  lot  of  interesting  facts 
concerning  it  that  I  won't  repeat,  because 
this  is  not  a  story  about  ancient  times, 
but  about  a  boy  who  is  still  living  in 
Massachusetts. 

Finally  John  walked  up  to  the  obelisk. 
c  Hands    off!"    said    his    father   nerv 
ously  ;  but  either   the  boy  didn't  hear  or 
else  he  didn't  mind.     I  prefer  to  think  that 

3°9 


THE  BOY  WHO  TURNED 

he  didn't  hear.  At  any  rate,  he  put  his 
hands  on  the  great  stone  shaft,  and  said  : 

"  My,  I  wish  this  was  a  big  pyramid  of 
ice-cream.  I'm  awful  hungry." 

In  an  instant,  of  course,  the  obelisk 
turned  to  ice-cream  of  different  flavors, 
vanilla  at  the  bottom,  chocolate  in  the 
middle,  and  strawberry  at  the  top. 

Now,  if  it  had  been  winter  time,  it 
wouldn't  have  been  so  disastrous  a  thing, 
because  ice-cream  will  keep  indefinitely  in 
the  winter.  But  it  happened  to  be  a  warm 
ish  day  in  early  spring,  and  the  priceless 
thing  began  to  melt.  John  grabbed  a 
handful,  and  was  just  going  to  eat  it  when  a 
park  policeman  came  running  up  and  said  : 

"  It's  against  orders  to  deface  anything 
in  the  park,  and  eating  is  defacing." 

But  that  wasn't  the  worst  of  it.  The 
hieroglyphics  were  beginning  to  run  and 
were  changing  their  meanings  already.  So 
Mr.  Smith  said : 


BOOKS  INTO  FOOD 

"  John,  clap  your  hands  on  the  thing 
and  wish  it  back  to  stone,  if  possible.  I 
can't  afford  to  pay  for  this  obelisk." 

John  ran  up  and  did  as  he  was  bid,  and 
wished  with  all  his  might  that  the  obelisk 
would  turn  to  stone  again,  and  by  great 
good  luck  it  did.  Then  he  licked  his 
fingers  on  the  sly,  and  promised  his  father 
then  and  there  that  he  would  never  try  to 
exercise  his  strange  gift  again. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Smith  asked  the  police 
man  not  to  say  a  word  about  the  affair, 
and  not  a  word  has  been  said  until  to-day; 
but  I  think  it  is  too  good  to  keep. 

And  now,  when  you  hear  learned  men 
say  that  the  action  of  our  climate  is  wear 
ing  away  the  stone  that  stood  for  ages  in 
Egypt,  you  will  understand  that  John 
Smith  had  a  hand  in  it — in  fact,  a  couple 
of  hands  in  it.  And  as  his  Aunt  Penelope 
would  have  said,  "  It  was  lickin'  good." 


SYDNEYAND    THE   JAR 
FAIRY 


SYDNEY  PUFFER  was  the  stupid 
est    boy  in    the    Malburn  school. 
Now   some   boys  are   stupid  and 
don't  know  it :     if  you  were  to  be  led  by 
their  opinion  of  themselves,  you  would  say 
they  were  anything  but  stupid.     But  Syd 
knew  he  was  stupid,  and  wished  every  day 
that  he  could  become  less  so.     It  is  not 
the  custom  at  the  Malburn  school  for  the 
boys  to  have  any  home  studies ;    all  their 
studying  is  done  in  the  class-room.     But 
315 


SYDNEY   AND   THE   JAR   FAIRY 

Syd  was  so  anxious  to  learn  that  he  would 
take  his  geography  and  his  speller  home, 
and  would  study  and  study,  until  he  fell 
asleep  over  the  books. 

And  next  day  in  class  Miss  Greene 
would  say:  "Sydney,  spell  'few/' 
"  F-i-e-w,"  Sydney  would  say.  "  Wrong. 
Spell  'exasperate/  "  "  I-g-s-p-a-r-a-i-t." 
Sydney  would  spell  slowly  and  painstak 
ingly,  and,  then,  like  as  not,  Bob  Addoms, 
who  had  not  looked  at  his  lesson,  would 
spell  both  words  as  glibly  as  could  be,  and 
poor  Sydney  would  feel  utterly  disheart 
ened. 

Then  would  come  the  geography  les 
son.  "  Sydney,  where  is  France  ?  " 

"  France  is  the  capital  of  England." 

"  Yes,  but  where  is  it  ?  "  Miss  Greene 
would  continue.  She  really  seemed  to 
take  pleasure  in  leading  Sydney  on. 

"  Is  it  in  Ireland  ? "  he  would  ask 
doubtfully. 

316 


SYDNEY   AND   THE   JAR   FAIRY 

"  No,  it  isn't.  What  are  its  chief  pro 
ducts  ?  " 

"  Products  "  would  start  Syd  off.  "  Tar, 
pitch,  turpentine,  and  lumber,"  he  would 
say  with  unusual  speed ;  and  amid  the 
laughter  of  the  class,  he  would  sit  down. 
And  Bob  would  get  up,  and  bound  France, 
and  tell  her  chief  products  and  something 
about  her  form  of  government;  and  yet  he 
had  only  dipped  into  his  geography  be 
tween  classes. 

But  it  was  in  reading  that  Sydney  fared 
worst.  He  could  not  read  the  simplest 
words  without  stumbling  along.  Once 
Miss  Greene  gave  him  this  verse  from 
Longfellow : 

The  shades  of  night  were  falling  fast, 
As  through  an  Alpine  village  passed 
A  youth,  who  bore,  'mid  snow  and  ice, 
A  banner  with  the  strange  device, 
Excelsior! 

Sydney  rose  at  his  desk,  held  the  book 

3*7 


SYDNEY       AND       THE      JAR       FAIRY 

close  to  his  face,  for  he  was  near-sighted, 
opened  his  eyes  wide,  and,  frightened, 
dropped  his  lower  lip,  and  very  slowly 
read  : 

The  shads  of  nigt  were  fall-ing  fat 
As  thog  an  All  Pine  villag  paced 
A  yowt  who  bore  mid  snow  and  ice 
A  baner  with  the  strong  device,  Ex- 
Excellent  ! 

"  Very  excellent,"  said  Miss  Greene  ; 
"  but  I'm  afraid  not  excellent  enough  for 
you  to  get  an  c  extra '  in  reading." 

When  Syd  sat  down,  he  was  in  tears; 
but  that  did  not  cause  the  sniggers  and 
smiles  of  his  classmates  to  subside,  nor  did 
Miss  Greene  make  any  attempt  to  stop 
the  scholars. 

Little  Syd  felt  humiliated,  and  hardly 
knew  what  happened  the  rest  of  the  day. 
He  was  kept  in  for  an  hour,  and  had  to 
read  that  stanza  out  loud  fifty  times  and 
then  write  it  twenty-five  times. 
318 


SYDNEY       AND       THE      JAR       FAIRY 

It  was  late  in  the  afternoon  when  he 
finally  left  school  and  started  for  home. 
His  way  lay  along  the  seashore,  and  he 
shuffled  through  the  damp  sand,  half  wish 
ing  that  a  big  wave  would  come  and  bear 
him  away  to  a  land  where  there  was  no 
such  thing  as  school. 

"  I  wish  I  could  learn.  I  don't  want 
to  grow  up  a  dunce,"  he  said  to  himself, 
"  but  everything  is  so  hard,  and  Miss 
Greene  doesn't  think  I  can  do  anything, 
and  then  I  can't.  I  read  that  verse  all 
right  to  grandma,  but  she  kept  stroking 
my  hair,  and  that  made  the  words  look 
easier." 

So  he  talked  out  loud  to  himself,  and 
shuffled  along  until  his  foot  unearthed,  or 
rather  unsanded,  a  bronze  jar  of  a  very 
curious  shape.  Little  Syd  had  never  read 
any  fairy  stories,  of  course.  Reading  was 
too  hard  a  thing  for  him  to  do  more  in  it 
than  he  had  to  do.  And  his  grandmother, 
319 


SYDNEY       AND       THE      JAR      FAIRY 

although  a  lovely  old  lady  and  devoted  to 
her  little  grandson  (the  only  one  left  of  a 
large  family  of  children  and  grandchildren), 
was  no  believer  in  fairy  tales.  "  It's  a 
waste  of  time,"  she  had  said  to  a  caller  who 
asked  her  whether  she  read  "  Alice  in 
Wonderland  "  to  Sydney.  "  It  all  seems 
very  nonsensical  to  me.  What  is  the  use 
of  filling  the  poor  boy's  brain  with  stories 
that  are  not  only  untrue,  but  are  silly  ? 
It  isn't  easy  for  him  to  learn ;  so  I  believe 
in  reading  only  those  things  that  will  do 
him  good." 

"  Yes,"  the  visitor  had  said,  "  but  if  you 
don't  exercise  his  imagination,  you  are  go 
ing  to  give  him  a  cheerless  old  age." 

But  grandma  had  laughed  in  her  cheery 
way  and  said  :  "  Well,  I'm  old  enough, 
conscience  knows,  and  I've  had  enough  to 
try  me,  but  I  find  life  pleasant,  and  that 
without  any  fairy  stories,  either." 

So  the  caller  had  changed  the  subject. 
320 


SYDNEY   AND   THE   JAR   FAIRY 

You  see,  therefore,  that  Sydney  did  not 
immediately  wonder,  as  an  imaginative  boy 
would  have  wondered,  what  the  jar  was 
good  for  and  whether  it  was  one  of  the 
kind  told  about  in  the  Arabian  Nights. 
But  it  is  a  peculiar  thing  about  fairies 
and  their  ways  that  it  doesn't  make  a  bit 
of  difference  to  them  whether  you  believe 
in  them  or  not.  If  they  think  that  you 
need  them,  they  will  come  to  you  and  force 
you  to  believe  in  them. 

As  soon  as  Sydney  kicked  the  jar,  he 
stopped  and  picked  it  up,  and  began  rub 
bing  the  sand  from  it,  and  lo  and  behold ! 
a  beautiful  fairy  came  out  of  it,  and  flew 
before  him  like  a  butterfly,  talking  as  she 
flew. 

"  What  do  you  want  of  me,  my  dear  ?  " 
she  said  in  the  sweetest  voice  imaginable. 

But  Sydney  only  stared  in  amazement. 

"  You  called  me,  my  dear,  and  here  I 
am.      I  can  do  anything  for  you  that  you 
321 


SYDNEY       AND       THE      JAR       FAIRY 

wish  done.  Make  you  rich,  make  you 
wise,  make  you  good." 

Now,  there  are  a  number  of  boys  in  the 
Malburn  school  who  would  have  said : 
"  Oh,  make  me  rich,"  but  dear  little  Syd 
hardly  ever  thought  of  money.  He  did 
want  to  know  something,  so  he  said : 

"  I  wish  that  I  could  learn  easily. " 

You  see,  he  didn't  even  ask  to  know 
everything  without  study ;  he  merely 
wanted  to  learn  easily,  and  as  he  had 
asked  so  he  received. 

The  fairy  fluttered  up  to  him  and  kissed 
him  on  each  cheek,  and  he  told  me  after 
ward  that  it  was  as  if  a  warm  snowflake 
had  touched  him,  which  was  not  a  bad  idea 
for  a  fellow  like  Sydney. 

Then  the  fairy  and  the  jar  vanished,  but 
Sydney  walked  home  as  happy  as  if  he 
had  never  been  bothered  at  school.  He 
had  his  school-books  under  his  arm,  for 
he  had  determined  to  have  good  lessons 

3" 


SYDNEY      AND       THE      JAR       FAIRY 

next  day  if  it  took  him  all  night  to  learn 
them. 

I  think  that  he  fancied  his  grandmother 
would  not  believe  that  he  had  met  a  fairy, 
so  he  said  nothing  to  her  about  it.  But 
eager  to  test  his  new  power,  he  sat  down  at 
the  center  table  in  the  sitting-room  and 
began  to  study  his  history  lesson.  The 
boys  had  studies  far  beyond  their  ages  in 
that  school.  Sydney  was  only  ten,  and  as 
you  have  seen,  he  could  hardly  read,  and 
yet  he  had  history,  geography,  spelling, 
arithmetic,  grammar,  and  physiology. 

Well,  the  history  lesson  for  the  next 
day  was  about  the  battle  of  Concord,  and 
Sydney  began  to  read  it  out  loud,  as  was 
his  habit,  and  to  his  great  astonishment  he 
read  it  as  glibly  as  Bob  Addoms,  and  to 
his  greater  astonishment  he  remembered 
every  word  of  it,  and  when  he  had  shut 
the  book  up  he  found  himself  repeating 
the  whole  chapter,  word  for  word,  and 

3*3 


SYDNEY   AND   THE   JAR   FAIRY 

with  as  much  expression  as  Lorimer  Hal- 
stead  put  into  his  reading,  and  Lorimer 
was  the  star  "  elocutionist "  of  the  school. 

Grandma  came  into  the  room  just  as  he 
was  finishing  his  recitation,  and  she  was 
astonished  enough.  "  Why,  my  boy,  you 
are  improving  a  great  deal.  I  always  said 
you  had  it  in  you.  Your  dear  father  was 
as  smart  as  a  steel  trap,  and  I  knew  you'd 
inherit  some  of  his  smartness.  That's  an 
interesting  part  of  history.  My  grand 
father  was  at  the  battle  of  Concord.  He 
was  a  cousin  of  Paul  Revere's.  Do  you 
know  about  Paul  Revere  ?  There  are 
some  very  pretty  verses  about  him  by 
Longfellow,  the  poet,  in  this  book.  See 
if  you  can  read  them  to  me." 

She  handed  a  volume  of  Longfellow's 
poems  to  the  boy,  and  he  read  "  Paul  Re 
vere's  Ride  "  as  easily  as  if  he  had  known 
it  by  heart.  Not  only  that,  he  shut  the 
book  up  and  recited  it,  with  appropriate 

3*4 


SYDNEY       AND       THE       JAR        FAIRY 

gestures;  and  his  grandmother  caught 
him  in  her  arms,  and  said  :  "  Just  like 
your  father.  He  could  recite  that  so 
that  people  always  wanted  him  to  repeat 
it  immediately." 

You   can   imagine  how  pleased  Sydney 
was  at  this   praise  from  his  grandmother, 
but  he  did  not   allow   it  to  turn  his  little 
head.       He    took  his    other    books    and 
studied  each  lesson,  and  he  found  that  one 
reading  fixed  it  in  his  mind.      He  was  able 
to  do  examples  in  fractions  that  had  merely 
given  him  a  headache  formerly;  and  as  for 
geography,  before   bedtime   came  he  had 
read  the  whole  book  through,  from  begin 
ning   to  end,  and   could   draw   maps  and 
color  them,  and  print  the  names  of  cities 
and  counties  in  most  beautiful  letters.  And 
as    he    did    each    thing    his  grandmother 
would  say :    "  Your  father  all    over,   my 
dear." 

Some  boys  would   have   been   eager  to 

3*5 


SYDNEY      AND       THE      JAR       FAIRY 

show  off  next  day  to  the  class,  but  it  never 
entered  little  Sydney's  head.  He  was 
very  happy  that  he  was  going  to  be  like 
his  father — that  father  who  had  died  when 
he  was  a  small  baby,  and  he  would  be 
glad  not  to  vex  Miss  Greene  any  more, 
but  he  was  not  at  all  anxious  to  show  off. 
I  must  say  that  a  little  bit  of  that  spirit 
would  have  been  natural  and  perhaps 
commendable,  but  I  am  not  trying  to  draw 
a  picture  of  a  boy  who  might  have  been, 
but  of  a  boy  who  was. 

The  first  lesson  after  morning  exercises 
was  geography.  Bob  Addoms  was  asked 
to  go  to  the  board  and  draw  a  map  of 
Africa  and  to  name  all  the  Dutch  posses 
sions.  Addoms  was  the  champion  map- 
drawer  of  the  school,  and  he  knew  it,  and 
I  suppose  that  that  fact  made  him  careless. 
At  any  rate,  when  his  map  was  done  and 
Miss  Greene  had  said,  "  Excellent,  Bob.  I 
will  give  you  two  extras,"  Sydney  raised 
326 


SYDNEY   AND   THE   JAR   FAIRY 

his  hand   and  said  :  £C  Is  it  quite  right  at 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  ?  " 

A  shout  went  up  from  the  scholars,  and 
Miss  Greene  herself  smiled.  Sydney,  who 
did  not  know  the  difference  between  Eu 
rope  and  South  America,  to  be  criticising 
Bob's  map  ! 

"  Perhaps  you  can  draw  a  better  one," 
said  Miss  Greene.  I  do  not  like  the  sar 
castic  way  in  which  she  talked.  Teachers 
have  no  business  to  be  sarcastic. 

"  I'll  try,"  said  Sydney,  and  he  went  up 
to  her  table  and  selected  crayons  of  differ 
ent  colors. 

Then  he  drew  such  a  map  as  had  never 
been  seen  on  the  black-board.  It  was  as 
accurate  as  the  map  in  the  geography, 
even  to  the  smallest  inlets  and  tiniest 
capes.  And  when  he  had  drawn  it,  he 
colored  all  the  divisions,  and  printed  all 
the  names,  amid  the  dead  silence  of  the 
class.  Just  as  he  finished  it  the  door 
327 


SYDNEY       AND       THE       JAR        FAIRY 

opened  and  the  Superintendent  of  the 
County  Board  of  Education  walked  in. 

In  spite  of  his  coming,  the  boys  and 
girls  clapped  their  hands  at  Sydney's  work, 
and  Miss  Greene  said  :  "  Beautiful,  Syd 
ney  !  I'll  give  you  ten  extras." 

Sydney  stood  erect,  and  felt  that  at  last 
he  had  come  to  his  own. 

And  the  Superintendent,  who  was  quite 
a  good  draughtsman  himself,  said :  "  Miss 
Greene,  I  consider  that  map  so  remark 
able  that  I  am  going  to  have  the  black 
board  removed  and  sent  to  the  Paris  Ex 
position  as  a  sample  of  American  school 
work." 

And  the  scholars  rose  to  their  feet  and 
gave  three  cheers  for  Sydney,  quite  un 
checked. 

Now,  if  you  went  to  the  Paris  Exposi 
tion  perhaps  you  saw  Sydney  Puffer's 
map  of  Africa.  But  I  don't  vouch  for 
its  having  been  there.  It  was  drawn 

3z8 


SYDNEY       AND       THE       JAR       FAIRY 

under  fairy  influence,  and  it  may  have 
been  withdrawn  under  the  same  influence. 
But  this  I  do  know.  Sydney  Puffer  is 
now  the  best  scholar  in  Malburn  school. 
Miss  Greene  says  it  is  awakened  ambition, 
his  grandmother  says  it  is  his  heritage 
from  his  father,  and  Sydney  says  it  is  the 
fairy. 

The  End 


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